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ENGLISH    EVOLUTIONARY    ETHICS 


A    THESIS 

Presented  to  the  Faculty  of   Cornell    University 
IN  Fulfillment  of   a   Part  of  the  Require- 
ments for  the  Degree   of   Doctor   of 
Philosophy,  May,  1895 


BY 


MELBOURNE  STUART  READ 


HAMILTON,    N.  Y. 

REPUBLICAN     PRESS 

1902 


ENGLISH    EVOLUTIONARY    ETHICS 


A    THESIS 

Presented  to  the  Faculty  of   Cornell    University 
IN  Fulfillment  of   a   Part  of  the  Require- 
ments for  the  Degree   of   Doctor   of 
Philosophy,  May,  1895 


BY 


MELBOURNE  STUART  READ 
sometime  scholar  and  fellow  in  the  sage 

school  of    philosophy,   CORNELL 

university 


^'o^  -THE 


HAMILTON,    N.  Y. 

REPUBLICAN     PRESS 

1902 


6T13 


PREFACE 


It  is  not  altogether  satisfactory  to  publish  a  thesis 
nearly  seven  years  after  writing  it.  The  problem  is 
presented  of  maintaining  practically  the  same  arguments 
and  conclusions  which  were  then  held,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  be  true  to  one's  present  thought.  In  the  solution 
of  this  difficulty,  there  has  been  a  partial  rearrangement 
of  the  material,  and  the  concluding  chapter  of  each  part 
has  been  somewhat  modified.  Yet  the  thesis  remains  prac- 
tically as  it  was  at  first  presented.  The  slight  modifica- 
tions are,  it  is  hoped  in  the  direction  of  real  progress  in 
thought  in  the  intervening  years,  and  the  writer  has  no 
intention  of  disowning  his  product.  A  present  writing 
de  novo  would  furnish,  however,  a  somewhat  different 
work,  especially  taking  into  account,  and  profiting  by, 
several  important  works  on  various  phases  of  the  subject 
which  have  more  recently  appeared.  Chapters  I,  II,  III, 
V,  VI,  and  VII  are  in  part  expository  and  in  part  critical, 
while  Chapters  IV  and  VIII  are  intended  to  mark  an  ad- 
vance and  to  be  suggestive  of  doctrine. 

The  writer  has  departed  somewhat  from  the  usual  cus- 
tom in  not  using  quotation  marks,  and  in  not  giving  page 
and  line  references  in  exposition.  The  works  referred  to 
are  so  well  known,  and  the  exposition  carried  on  to  such 
an  extent,  that  even  though  the  language  of  the  original 
has  been  used  constantly,  it  would  seem  unnecessary  and 
even  pedantic  to  formally  credit  the  references. 

I  wish  to  acknowledge  my  deep  obligation  to  President 
Jacob  Gould  Shurman,  my  teacher  and  inspirer  in  ethical 
study,  while  this  thesis  was  being  prepared.  I  also  wish 
to  express  my  appreciation  of  the  leniency  of  the  Cornell 

99729 


Preface 

University  Faculty  in  allowing  postponement  of  publica- 
tion so  long.     The  writer  would  not  have  availed  himself 
of  this,  had  it  not  been  for  the  exacting  duties  of  a  general 
chair  of  Philosophy. 

Melbourne  Stuart  Read 

Colgate  University 
Hamilton,    New    York 
March,  1902 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

PART  I. — The  Moral  Ideal. 

Chapter  i.   Herbert  Spencer's  doctrine  of  the  Moral 

Ideal, 3 

Chapter  ii.   Leslie  Stephen's  doctrine    of  the  Moral 

Ideal, 18 

Chapter  hi.   Charles    Darwin    and    Thomas    Henry 

Huxley, 32 

Chapter  iv.   Comparison  of  Ends,  and  relation  of  the 

doctrine  of  Evolution  to  the  Moral  Standard,  ...      37 

PART  II. — The  Conscience. 

Chapter  v.   Darwin's  theory    of    the  origin   of   Con- 
science,        62 

Chapter   vi.   Spencer's  theory  of  the  origin  of  Con- 
science,        "^2 

Chapter  vii.   Stephen's   theory   of  the  origin  of  Con- 
science,        82 

Chapter  viii.   The  development  of    the   Moral    Con- 
sciousness,        89 


^ 


PART  I 

THE  MORAL  IDEAL 


From  the  earliest  period  of  ethical  speculation,  the 
question  of  the  summum  bonum  or  highest  good  for  man 
has  been  the  central  problem  in  the  minds  of  moral  philos- 
ophers. In  fact,  moral  philosophy  had  its  rise  in  the 
consciousness  of  mankind  directly  from  the  deep  question- 
ing of  the  human  heart  as  to  what  is  worth  while  in  life; 
and  which  phases  of  life  are  of  most  value.  The  question 
"Is  life  worth  living?"  early  arose  in  the  minds  of  m^n, 
and  either  in  this  direct  form,  or  in  the  form  of  a  careful 
weighmg  of  the  values  of  life  in  the  search  for  the  highest 
good,  it  has  never  ceased  to  be  of  vital  interest. 

True,  in  the  modern  or  Christian  age,  the  problem  is 
presented  with  a  different  aspect;  but  the  fundamental 
meaning  is  the  same.  The  modern  strenuous  temper  seeks 
to  know  the  content  of  its  duty.  "What  ought  I  to  do?" 
is  the  problem  of  the  moral  life.  This  difference  of  temper 
and  of  moral  aim  is  a  characteristic  difference  between  the 
lateirresponsible  youth  of  the  world,  and  the  early  respon- 
ble  manhood  of  our  own  later  centuries.  And  yet,  as  we 
have  just  said, the  meaning  of  the  questioning  of  the  human 
heart  is  the  same,  and  the  search  is  for  that  which  is  ethi- 
cally best.  And  as  the  philosopher  is  merely  one  who 
pushes  a  little  further  the  common  questionings  of  men,  so 
the  explicit  problem  of  the  moral  philosopher  becomes  an 
inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the  highest  good  and  the  mean- 
ing of  the  moral  law. 

When  the  light  of  the  doctrines  of  evolution  began  to 
illumine  the  world's  thought,  it  became   clear  that   the 


2  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

almost  world-old  questions  of  morals  would  have  to  be 
asked  again,  in  the  hope  of  a  more  satisfactory  answer 
than  had  heretofore  been  given.  Viewing  life  as  he  doesin 
the  great  extent  of  its  history  in  the  universe,it  would  seem 
especially  fitting  that  the  verdict  of  the  evolutionist  should 
be  listened  to  with  respect.  The  classic  evolutionistic 
answers  to  the  problems  of  morals  were  brought  out  by 
two  notable  English  writers,  Herbert  Spencer  and  Leslie 
Stephen.  The  work  of  the  former  is  The  Principles  of 
Ethics,  and  that  of  the  latter  The  Science  of  Ethics. 

In  the  first  part  of  this  work  it  is  the  object  to  present 
an  exposition  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Moral  Ideal,  as  brought 
out  by  these  representative  evolutionary  moralists,  to- 
gether with  critical  estimates  of  the  same;  and,  in  addi- 
iton.to  show  in  general  the  place  of  the  evolution  doctrine 
in  the  matter  of  the  moral  standard.  Incidental  reference 
will  be  made  to  other  evolutionary  writers  as  supplemen- 
tarv  to  the  main  classical  treatises. 


CHAPTER  I 

HERBERT   SPENCER's  DOCTRINE    OF  THE  MORAL  IDEAL 

For  Spencer  the  subject  matter  of  ethics  comprehends 
the  laws  of  right  living  at  large.  It  goes  beyond  the  con- 
duct commonly  considered  as  right  and  wrong,  and 
includes  all  conduct  that  furthers  or  hinders,  directly  or 
indirectly,  the  welfare  of  self  and  of  others.  It  may  then 
be  considered  as  a  part  of  conduct  at  large,  which  is  con- 
cerned with  acts  adjusted  to  ends.  In  fact,  Spencer  thinks 
we  must  so  consider  it,  if  we  are  to  get  a  true  view  of 
morality.  It  is  only  in  relation  to  the  whole  that  we  can 
know  the  part,  and  the  whole  of  which  ethical  conduct  is 
a  part  is  the  conduct  of  all  animal  organisms. 

Looked  at  thus  extensively,  logically  speaking,  it  would 
seem  as  though  Spencer  might  not  lay  the  proper  stress 
on  the  intension  of  moral  conduct.  It  is  only  fair,  how- 
ever, at  the  outset,  to  remark  that  Spencer's  attempt  is  to 
find  out  thereal  meaningof  the  moral  life,  to  make  explicit 
its  full  content.  In  order  to  get  an  intelligent  view  of  con- 
duct as  a  whole,  says  Spencer,  we  must  look  at  it  under 
the  light  of  evolution.  Along  with  the  evolution  of  struc- 
ture and  of  function  has  gone  the  evolution  of  conduct. 
In  its  highest  stages  this  evolved  conduct  is  that  displayed 
by  the  highest  type  of  being — man.  When  conduct  is  most 
highly  evolved  in  man,  its  characteristic  traits  are  the 
highest  ethical  ideals. 

Looking  at  the  evolution  of  conduct  in  its  course  from 
the  lowest  organism  to  the  most  highly  developed  man  in 
the  most  highly  developed  society,  we  see  that  conduct,  or 
the  purposeful  adjustment  of  acts  to  ends  is  but  poorly 
carried  out  in  the  lowest  life.  As  it  rises  in  the  scale  it 
becomes  better  adapted  to  the  welfare  of  self  and  off- 


4  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

spring.  Finally,  when  social  life  becomes  necessary,  as  in 
man,  when  man  is  forced  to  live  more  and  more  in  the 
presence  of  his  fellows,  we  find  conduct  fitted  in  the  high- 
est degree  to  the  welfare  of  self,  offspring,  and  fellowmen. 
Here  conduct  gains  its  highest  ethical  sanction. 

Non-ethical  conduct  is  good  or  bad  according  as  it  results 
in  success  or  failure  in  adjustment  of  acts  to  the  end  in 
view.  The  same  is  true  of  moral  conduct,  says  Spencer, 
though  it  is  not  always  seen  on  account  of  complication 
of  ends,  welfares  of  self,  offspring,  and  fellowmen.  Viewed 
as  conducing  to  welfare  of  self,  the  act  is  good  which 
furthers  self  preservation.  As  conducing  to  welfare  of  off- 
spring, acts  are  good  that  bring  about  this  end.  Most 
clearly  is  conduct  seen  to  be  good  when,  in  considering  the 
welfare  of  others,  acts  are  so  adjusted  as  to  produce  the 
end  required.  Hence  in  moral  conduct  as  in  non-moral 
that  is  good  which  is  best  calculated  to  bring  about  the 
ends  desired.  As  the  evolution  of  life  reaches  its  highest 
pitch  when  it  achieves  the  greatest  totality  of  life  in  self, 
offspring,  and  fellowmen  so,  says  Spencer,  enunciating  his 
doctrine  of  the  good,  conduct,  good  as  producing  either  of 
these  ends,  becomes  best  when  it  produces  them  all  at  one 
and  the  same  time. 

Spencer  views  moral  conduct  in  many  ways,  physically, 
biologically,  psj^chologically,  and  sociologically.  In  his 
biological  view  he  considers  not  only  the  physiological 
side  but  also,  what  is  more  important,  the  psychical 
changes  which  accompany  physical  changes  in  the  organ- 
ism. These  psjchical  states  act  as  stimuli  and  guides 
for  the  proper  performance  of  function.  It  has  come  to 
pass  in  the  course  of  evolution,  says  Spencer,  that  pleas- 
urable actions  are  on  the  whole  beneficial  to  theorganism, 
while  painful  acts  are  injurious.  In  no  other  way  could 
life  have  evolved.  Those  to  whom  pleasurable  actions 
brought  injury  must  have  been  eliminated.  Even  before 
feeling  life,  Spencer  observes,  the  process  of  connection  be- 
tween acts  and  results  must  have  been  established;  and 


( 


The  Moral  Ideal  5 

the  feeling  life  has  but  carried  on  the  same  process.  Not 
only  do  we  see  that  life  could  have  been  evolved  on  these 
principles  alone,  but  this,  together  with  the  fact  that  de- 
veloped creatures  are  kept  alive  at  present  by  pursuit  of 
the  pleasurable  and  avoidance  of  the  painful,  puts  it  be- 
yond question,  Spencer  thinks,  that  pleasure-giving  acts 
sustain  life  while  pain-giving  acts  lower  vitality. 

The  difficulty  that  there  are  mischievous  pleasures  and 
beneficent  pains  in  human  life,  is  explained  by  showing  that 
the  latter  are  endured  and  the  former  foregone  for  the  sake 
of  greater  pleasure  to  come.  That  this  has  to  be  done 
rests  upon  the  fact,  plainly  observable  all  through  the 
course  of  evolution,  that  partial  misadjustments  of  feel- 
ings to  requirements  have  arisen,  and  readjustments  have 
had  to  be  made. 

Biologically  defined  then,  says  Spencer,  ideal  moral  con- 
duct is  a  balance  of  functions  which  are  so  adjusted  as  to 
maintain  and  make  up  complete  life.  When  these  function- 
ings  are  not  altogether  pleasurable  in  actual  life,  there  is 
misadjustment  and  derangement  caused  by  change  of 
conditions.  With  complete  adjustment  of  men  to  their 
environment,  however,  actions  will  be  right  when  they 
conduce  to  immediate  pleasure  and  future  happiness.  The 
spontaneous  exercise  of  all  one's  functions  in  this  ideal  so- 
cial state  will  be  the  fulfilling  of  the  law  toward  self,  off- 
spring, and  fellowmen;  and  this  will  be  accompanied  by  its 
due  quantum  of  pleasure. 

Spencer  now  seeks  to  give  moral  conduct  a  fuller  mean- 
ing by  a  further  evaluation  of  the  totality  of  life  which  is, 
sofar,the  end.  Is  life  worth  livmg?  he  asks.  Hasevolution 
been  a  mistake?  Answers  to  these  questions  will  be  given 
differently  by  the  optimist  and  by  the  pessimist.  If  exis- 
tence is  undesirable,  then  the  furtherance  of  life  is  bad.  If 
desirable,  then  good.  Where  then  shall  we  find  a  common 
meeting  ground  for  optimist  and  pessimist  in  regard  to 
the  good  and  bad  ?  Spencer  answers,  both  agree  that  life 
is  good  or  bad  according  as  it  does  or  does  not  produce  a 


6  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

surplus  of  agreeable  feeling.  If  either  admits  immortality 
then  the  discussion  is  given  with  due  regard  to  such  exten- 
sion of  life.  Thinking  of  as  good  either  a  pleasurable  state 
of  consciousness,  an  agent  proximate  or  remote  that 
brings  about  such  a  state,  or  any  conduct  that  brings 
with  it  more  happiness  than  misery,  we  must  say  that 
the  good  is  universally  the  pleasurable.  This  is  Spencer's 
second  enunciation  of  his  doctrine  of  the  good. 

That  all  do  not  recognize  this,  Spencer  attributes  to 
their  substituting  the  means  for  the  end.  He  then  pro- 
ceeds to  show  that  all  non-hedonistic  systems  of  ethics  rest 
upon  a  hedonistic  basis.  Spencer  is  thus  a  thorough-going 
hedonist.  The  ultimate  moral  aim,  he  holds,  must  be  a 
desirable  state  of  feeling  by  whatever  name  it  may  be 
called.  For,  he  says,  pleasure  is  as  much  a  necessary  form 
of  moral  intuition  as  space  is  a  necessary  form  of  intellec- 
tual intuition. 

In  criticising  various  methods  of  ethics,  Spencer  finds  in 
them  a  great  lack  of  the  idea  of  causation.  Nowhere  is 
this  more  evident  than  in  ordinary  utilitarianism  from 
which  Spencer's  hedonism  is  considerably  divergent.  The 
utilitarian  makes  observations  of  results  of  various  forms 
of  conduct  as  to  whether  these  results  are  good  or  bad. 
Thus,  by  induction,  we  formulate  our  good  and  bad  con- 
duct as  resulting  in  certain  consequences.  The  inference 
is  that  these  relations  always  hold  good.  This  relation 
does  not  amount  to  recognition  of  causation  in  its  fullest 
sense.  This  Spencer  calls  empirical  utilitarianism,  and  his 
own  he  calls  rational.  Spencer  holds  that  we  must  first 
find  out  the  laws  of  life  and  conditions  of  existence,  and 
then  deduce  from  these  what  kinds  of  actions  produce 
happiness,  and  what,  pain.  These  deductions  are  laws  of 
conduct  and  must  be  followed  irrespective  of  direct  hedo- 
nistic value.  The  pleasure-pain  calculus  holds  to  a  certain 
extent,  but  throughout  the  large  part  of  our  conduct  it 
must  bereplaced  by  other  guidance.  This  we  must  remem- 
ber is  a  matter  of  means  not  of  end  for  Spencer.     That 


The  Moral  Ideal  7 

happiness  is  the  supreme  end  is  beyond  all  question  true, 
says  Spencer,  for  this  is  the  concomitant  of  the  highest  life 
which  every  theory  of  moral  guidance  has  distinctly  or 
vaguely  in  view.  Other  theories  are  concerned  with  the 
means,  not  with  the  end,  which  now  we  find  to  be  happi- 
ness, i.  e.  surplus  of  agreeable  feeling. 

For  a  hedonistic  theorv  of  the  moral  ideal,  as  indeed  for 
any  other,  the  question  of  the  place  of  egoism  and  altru- 
ism in  the  moral  life  has  always  been  of  great  importance. 
Spencer  seeks  to  throw  some  light  on  the  problem  from 
the  evolution  of  life  point  of  view.  Egoism  he  says  is  an 
ultimate  principle  of  conduct.  Self  preservation  under  the 
law  that  each  shall  receive  the  benefits  and  evils  of  his 
own  nature  is  the  first  principle  of  evolving  life.  On  the 
other  hand  excessive  altruism  tends  to  its  own  elimina- 
tion, causing  the  less  altruistic  to  survive,  and  working 
destruction  to  self  and  offspring. 

Yet  altruism  is  no  less  essential  in  the  evolution  of  life 
than  egoism.  Whatever  action,  conscious  or  unconscious, 
says  Spencer,  involves  expenditure  of  individual  life  to  the 
end  of  increasing  life  in  other  individuals  is  essentially  al- 
truistic. This  of  necessity  has  always  been  exhibited,  in 
pre-conscious  life,  parental  life,  and  social  life. 

The  only  possibility  of  ethical  conduct  is  a  compromise 
C  between  pure  egoism  and  pure  altruism.  Pure  egoism 
would  result  in  social  dissolution.  Pure  altruism,  the  ideal 
of  the  utilitarians,  is  subjected  to  a  severe  criticism  by 
Spencer,  who  regards  it  as  a  violation  of  the  just  rights  of 
the  individual.  Pure  altruism  becomes  less  and  less  prac- 
ticable as  society  advances  to  perfection,  as  it  will  have 
less  and  less  occasion  for  exercise.  To  yield  up  normal 
pleasure,  says  Spencer  in  defence  of  egoism,  is  to  yield  up 
so  much  life,  and  the  question  arises  to  what  extent  this 
may  be  done.  If  the  individual  is  to  continue  living,  he 
must  take  certain  pleasures  and  avoid  the  pains  of  non- 
fulfillment of  function.  Egoism  and  altruism  are  essential. 
General  happiness  is  to  be  achieved  mainly  by  the  adequate 


8  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

pursuit  of  their  own  happiness  by  individuals,  while  recip- 
rocally, the  happiness  of  the  individual  is  to  be  achieved 
in  part  in  the  pursuit  of  general  happiness.  This  com- 
promise between  egoism  and  altruism  has  been  slowly 
establishing  itself  in  society.  This  statement  of  the  case 
by  Spencer  is  in  purely  hedonistic  terms. 

As  this  compromise,  however,  seems  to  imply  a  perma- 
nent antagonism  between  the  two,  Spencer  proceeds  to 
consider  their  conciliation.  This  is  brought  about  by  the 
development  of  sympathy,  which  must  advance  as  fast  as 
conditions  permit.  The  main  condition  is  that  S3-mpathy 
be  of  a  pleasurable  rather  than  a  painful  sort.  When  the 
conditions  of  life  require  that  any  class  of  activities  shall 
be  relatively  great,  there  will  arise  a  relatively  great  pleas- 
ure accompanying  that  class  of  activities.  S\-mpathetic 
activities  become  more  and  more  essential  to  the  welfare 
of  society.  The  scope  for  altruistic  activities  will  not  ex- 
ceed the  desire  for  altruistic  satisfactions.  Such  altruistic 
gratification,  though  in  a  transfigured  sense  egoistic,  will 
only  be  so  unconsciously.  As  the  occasion  for  self-sacrifice 
disappears,  altruism  will  take  on  the  alternate  form  of  sym- 
pathy with  the  pleasures  of  others  produced  by  their  suc- 
cessful activities. 

As  Spencer  puts  it  in  another  place,  there  has  been  aris- 
ing from  the  beginning  such  constitution  in  each  creature 
as  entailed  egoistic  gratification  in  performing  altruistic 
action.  There  gradually  evolves,  with  the  evolution  of  a 
higher  life,  an  organic  altruism  which,  in  relation  to  a 
certain  limited  class  of  other  beings,  works  to  the  effect  of 
making  what  we  call  self-sacrifice  not  a  sacrifice  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  It  is  an  act  which  brings 
more  pleasure  than  pain,  an  act  which  has  for  its  accom- 
paniment an  altruistic  gratification  which  outweighs  the 
egoistic  gratification  lost.  This,  otherwise  stated,  implies 
that  as  the  altruistic  gratification  becomes  egoistically 
expressed,  egoism  and  altruism  coalesce.     The  pursuit  of 


The  Moral  Ideal  9 

the  altruistic  pleasure  has  become  a  higher  order  of  ego- 
istic pleasure. 

This  is  clearly  an  expression  of  the  nature  of  the  moral 
ideal  in  hedonistic  terms,  in  which  the  two  phases  of  the 
hedonistic  idea,  egoism  and  altruism, are  brought  together 
by  means  of  the  life  process. 

In  Spencer's  treatment  of  Justice  and  of  Beneficence,  we 
get  a  further  insight  into  his  conception  of  the  ethical  end. 
The  highest  conduct  is  that  which  conduces  to  the  greatest 
length,  breadth,  and  completeness  of  life.  If  we  assume  the 
preservation  and  prosperity  of  the  species  to  be  desirable, 
whatever  tends  to  this  takes  precedence  in  order  of  obliga- 
tion. Now  in  order  to  this  preservation  and  prosperity 
there  must  be  conformity  to  the  law  that  benefits  must  be 
directly  proportioned  to  the  power  of  self-sustentation; 
second,  that  during  early  life  benefits  must  be  proportional 
in  the  reverse  order;  and,  third,  when  the  welfare  of  the 
species  calls  for  any  amount  of  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the 
individual,  it  must  be  given.  The  exact  carrying  out  of  the 
first  law,  the  fundamental  idea  of  justice,  is  much  more 
easily  attained  as  life  advances  and  becomes  more  highl3' 
organized.  This  law  is  modified  by  the  idea  that  the 
spheres  of  action  are  mutual!}'-  bounded.  This  results  in 
the  formula,  "Every  man  is  free  to  do  that  which  he  wills, 
provided  he  infringes  not  the  equal  freedom  of  any  other 
man."  This  formula  is  easilj^  deducible,  says  Spencer,  from 
the  conditions  to  be  fulfilled,  viz.,  the  maintenance  of  life 
at  large;  and,  secondly,  the  maintenance  of  social  life.  The 
authority  of  such  a  fundamental  ethical  notion  as  that  of 
justice  is,  for  Spencer,  its  conduciveness  to  the  promotion 
of  the  greatest  totality  of  life  in  self,  offspring,  and  fellow- 
men. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  beneficence.  The  laws  of  jus- 
tice come  first  in  the  development  of  individual  and  social 
life,  and  it  is  onl}-  at  a  late  stage,  that,  in  order  for  life  to 
be  most  highly  developed,  beneficence  is  introduced.  Justice 
is  the  more  important  and  must  be  guaranteed  by  society, 


10  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

while  beneficence  is  a  matter  of  private  ethical  concern. 
Beneficent  conduct  has  its  justification  initsconduciveness 
to  the  maintenance  and  prosperity'  of  society.  This  ulti- 
mate sanction  has  for  Spencer  another  aspsct,  viz.,  that 
such  beneficent  conduct  is  conducive  to  happiness,  special 
or  general.  From  the  evolutionary  point  of  view  the  one 
implies  the  other.  The  highest  ambition  of  the  beneficent 
man  will  be  to  have  an  unselfish  share  in  the  attainment 
of  the  evolution  of  humanity,  the  making  of  man. 

Thus  according  to  Spencer,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
evolving  life,  its  evolution  means  increase  of  life  in  self, 
offspring,  and  fellows.  Conduct  bringing  about  this  end 
is  good,  conduct  hindering  it  is  bad.  The  death  of  the 
weaker  is  only  justified  in  that  it  gives  more  life  on  the 
whole  to  the  stronger.  The  end  prescribed  is  the  greatest 
possible  amount  of  life,  brought  about  by  the  most  com- 
plete, varied,  numerous,  and  perfect  adjustment  of  all 
means  to  this  end.  When  this  end  is  consciously  sought 
for,  conduct  becomes  moral.  He  is  evil,  wicked,  immoral 
who  acts  so  as  to  hinder  positively  or  negatively  the  ac- 
complishment of  this  end.  This  is  S]:>encer's  first  way  of 
enunciating  the  ethical  standard. 

We  have  seen,  however,  that  he  makes  a  transition 
from  this  standard  of  evaluation  to  that  of  pleasurable 
consciousness,  to  a  truly  hedonistic  statement  of  the 
moral  ideal.  It  is  necessary  to  examine  whether  this  tran- 
sition is  justifiable,  whether  these  two  ends  are  necessarily 
connected.  This  may  be  said  to  be  the  crux  in  Spencer's 
conception  of  the  good. 

Spencer's  finding  an  agTcementas  to  the  summum  bonum 
between  optimist  and  pessimist  obvscures  the  problem. 
Though  both  desire  pleasure  and  absence  of  pain,  this 
does  not  settle  the  question  as  to  whether  the  world  pro- 
cess does  produce  a  surplusage  of  pleasure  over  pain.  If 
the  pessimist's  answer  be  a  true  one,  that  the  life  process 
brings  a  surplusage  of  pain  over  pleasure,  then  the  end 
according  to  the  evolutionist,  increase  of  life  in  each   and 


The  Moral  Ideal  11 

all,  and  that  of  the  hedonist,  pleasure,  are  contradictory. 
The  more  life,  the  greater  surplusage  of  pain  over  pleasure. 
The  attainment  of  one  end  sacrifices  that  of  the  other. 
The  good  may  be  the  pleasurable,  but  the  evolution  of  life 
process  defeats  it.  Even  if  we  find  most  men  holding  tac- 
itly or  avowedly  that  the  final  j  ustification  for  maintaining 
life  can  only  rest  upon  the  reception  from  it  of  a  surplus  of 
pleasurable  over  painful  feeling,  this  does  not  settle  the 
question  as  to  whether  life  does  or  does  not  produce  such 
surplusage  of  agreeable  feeling.  The  evolution  process 
brings  about  its  end,  more  life;  it  may  also  defeat  in  so 
doing,  the  hedonistic  end. 

Spencer  seeks  to  make  good  his  point  bj'^  proving  the 
pessimistic  view  absurd,  by  establishing  the  necessity  of 
the  optimistic  view.  This  attempt  we  have  already  traced 
in  Spencer's  "Biological  View." 

Fit  connections  between  acts  and  results  must  establish 
themselves  in  living  things  even  before  consciousness 
arises.  These  connections  get  even  better  established, 
when  sentienc}'  comes  to  the  aid  of  struggling  unconscious 
life.  Conscious  life  inevitably  seeks  the  pleasurable,  and 
those  creatures  which  are  so  unfortunately  constituted  as 
to  find  pleasure  in  the  life-destroying  are  eliminated. 
Hence  the  deduction  that  the  life  preserving  or  increasing 
and  the  pleasure  giving  tend  more  and  more  to  coincide. 
When  evolution  has  reached  its  highest  there  will  be  an 
absolute  coincidence.  At  this  stage  there  is  such  a  coin- 
cidence that  pain  has  only  to  be  undergone  for  the  sake  of 
a  greater  pleasure  to  come.  Hence,  in  the  long  run,  the 
life  preserving  and  the  pleasure  giving  are  coincident,  and 
the  two  ends  fuse  together. 

As  Spencer's  conclusions  as  to  the  dual  nature  of  the 
ethical  end  depend  thus  entirely  upon  his  doctrine  of  the 
part  played  by  feeling  tone  in  life's  evolution  it  will  be 
well  to  examine  this  position  carefully.  It  would  be  dif- 
ficult, in  fact  impossible,  to  point  out  where  in  the  scale  of 


12  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

development  feeling  life  began  to  appear.  But  we  may 
certainly  say  that  it  was  long  after  organic  structures 
were  making  good  their  claim  to  exist  by  appropriate 
activities  with  respect  to  their  environment.  When  that 
which  Spencer  calls  feeling  came  into  existence,  there  were 
already  existing  certain  organic  habits  enabling  creatures 
more  or  less  successfully  to  survive.  In  so  far  as  these 
orgatiized  activities  and  tendencies  are  really  well  adapted 
for  the  actors'  preservation — well.  In  so  far  as  with 
changing  environment  they  are  not  really  well  adapted, 
they  are  bad,  and  in  so  far  are  eliminated  with  the  disap- 
pearance of  their  possessors.  The  very  fact  of  living 
marks  these  organisms  as  having  organized  sets  of  activi- 
ties which  they  do  follow,  and  are  by  their  make  up  bound 
to  follow,  and  which  are  more  and  more  conducive  to  suc- 
cess in  life's  struggle. 

Feeling  tone  is  then  not  a  necessity  in  organic  adjust- 
ment. It  is  indeed  difficult  from  a  biological  point  of 
view  to  see  why  feeling  life  should  arise  if  it  were  merely 
to  commend  these  activities  already  organized.  But 
Spencer  finds  feeling  life  present  and  proceeds  to  make  it 
for  these  organisms  the  one  guide  for  conduct.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  discover  the  time  in  their  evolution  at 
which  organisms  had  arrived  at  this  stage.  The  prob- 
ability is  that  there  would  be  no  utter  abandonment  of 
the  old  well  tried  ways  even  at  the  seductive  beckoning  of 
a  pleasurable  organic  tremor.  To  say  that  feeling  became 
the  sole  guide,  and  that  those  organisms  whose  pleasur- 
able activities  happened  to  coincide  with  the  old  organiz- 
ed life-preserving  lines  of  conduct  were  preserved,  while 
those  organisms  who  were  so  unfortunately  constituted 
as  to  have  pleasure  in  other  lines  of  action  than  these, 
were  eliminated,  is  a  proposition  that  it  would  be  difficult 
to  prove  by  a  sober  inquiry  into  the  facts  of  developing 
life.  Even  admitting  at  this  early  time  a  certain  coinci- 
lence  between  the  life  conserving  and  the  pleasure  giving, 
/this  does  not  show  that  the  former  would  give  way  to  the 


The  Moral  Ideal  13 

latter  in  cases  of  conflict,  nor  that  the  latter  becomes  the 
sole  guide  for  conduct. 

For  the  explanation  of  the  facts  of  evolving  life  this  sud- 
den change  of  guidance  is  neither  necessarj'-  nor  adequate. 
No  doubt   the  organism  is  continually  adjusting  itself  to 
its  environment  in  order  to  live.      It  uses  its  habitual  ac- 
tivities, and  in  addition  to  these,  in  part  breaking  up  the 
old  nervous  circuits,  makes  new  adjustments.     As  soon  as 
consciousness  dawns  there  is  some  awareness  of  the  strug- 
gle, a  dim  awakening  to  immediate  ends  and  means.   This 
new   adjusting  will  not  be  always  pleasant.     Habits  are 
hard  to  break.     The  reaching  out    for  pleasure  and  the 
shunning  of  pain  does  not  completely  tell  the  tale.      The 
animal's  life  is  not  always  a  path  of  pleasure  nor  a  more 
or  less  blind  attempt  to  make  it  so.     It  is  true   that  in 
order  to  persist  the  organism  must  perform  life  conserv- 
ing activities.     These  are  not  always  pleasurable.     And, 
stupid  though  the  organism  may  be,  we  have  no  evidence 
that  it  must  always  perform  the  pleasantest   action.   Life 
preserving  actions  are  performed  whether  attended   with 
agreeable  feeling  tone  or  not.  And  even  when  these  actions 
are  agreeable  there  is  no  evidence  to  show  that  it  is  this 
psvchological  experience  which  necessitates  the  activities 
of  the  organism.     They  lie  deeper  than  that.   Just  because 
the  individual  is  a  biological  organism  will  it  make  its 
way  in  its  environment.     Admitting  here  for  a  moment 
Ideological  considerations,  the  end  is  life  at  any  cost  not 
agreeable  feeling  at  any  cost.     It  is  probably  true  that  for 
the  individuals  who  survive  there  is  considerable  of  pleas- 
ure in  the  performance  of  life  preserving  activities.     But 
unless  we  admit  that  sentient  organisms  find  their  whole 
being  in  seeking  and  finding  agreeable  feeling  states,  we 
cannot  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  struggle  necessi- 
tates  a  coincidence  between  the  life  conserving  and  the 
pleasure  giving.     The  environment  must  be  mastered  by 
the  organism.     The  feeling  life  maybe  a  more  or  less  reli- 
able guide.  That  it  is  the  one  ruling  force  does  not  appear. 


14  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

As  Darwin  says,   In  many  instances  it  is  probable  that 

instincts  are  persistently  followed  from  the  mere  force  of  in- 

\  heritance  without  the  stimulus  of  either  pleasure  or  pain. 

Nor  is  it  clear  that  when  we  ascend  in  the  organic  scale 
to  man  we  find  an  organism  always  determined  in 
his  activities  by  pleasure-pain  considerations.  Spencer 
assumes  that  human  beings  universally  seek  the  pleasur- 
able and  avoid  the  painful.  Instinctive,  impulsive,  and 
ideo-motor  activities  have  no  doubt  in  the  consciousness 
attending  them  certain  affective  elements.  The  end  or 
purpose  of  such  activities  biologically  speaking  is  the  pos- 
session of  certain  objects,  and  psychologically  speaking 
the  pleasure  element  is  often  very  small ;  while  the  most 
pleasant  and  the  most  life  giving  do  not  always  coincide. 

In  voluntary  conduct  the  end  is  never  pleasure  in  the 
abstract.  It  may  be  the  idea  of  a  condition  of  the  self 
which,  in  prospect,  is  pleasantly  toned,  and  the  pleasant 
toning  may  be  the  chief  constituent  part  of  the  psychosis. 
Usually,  however,  the  end  is  not  chiefly  affective  but  is  the 
idea  of  the  self  as  possessingsomewhat.  The  guide  is  not 
the  pleasantness,  but  the  object  as  expressing  the  needs  of 
the  self,  while  the  agreeableness  of  the  outcome  is  not  the 
determining  factor  in  the  volition. 

It  is  impossible  to  give  feeling  that  dominant  place  in 
the  evolution  of  life,  either  in  the  human  or  pre-human 
stage,  which  Spencer  ascribes  to  it.  And  if  it  does  not 
have  this  absolute  domination,  it  is  impossible  to  show 
that  by  this  time  in  the  process  a  coincidence  has  been 
established  between  those  acts  which  organism  performs 
for  greater  fullness  of  life,  and  those  acts  which  are  most 
pleasure-giving. 

Even  on  Spencer's  own  assumption  the  pleasurable  has 
not  always  been  the  life  conserving,  for  pleasurable  conduct 
has  often  led  to  elimination.  It  is  a  question  of  how  far 
this  process  has  already  progressed.  May  it  not  be  that 
even  at  this  late  stage  in  the  process  human  beings  are  so 
constituted  that  in  many  cases,  if  not  in  the  majority,  the 


\ 


The  Moral  Ideal  15 

pleasurable  is  the  hurtful.  Seeing  this,  human  beings  may 
take  advantage  of  the  process,  and  undergo  enough  of  the 
painful  life-conserving  experience  to  save  them  from  elimi- 
nation. Pleasure  and  pain  are  largely  relative  terms.  Let 
us  suppose  those  in  whom  life-conserving  conduct  is  most 
painful  to  be  eliminated.  Then  if  the  natures  and  environ- 
ment of  beings  remain  constant,  sentient  life  would  on  the 
whole  be  more  pleasurable  than  that  preceding. 

This  of  course  is  subject  to  the  possibility  that  the  evo- 
lution of  life  has  not  reached  that  stage  where  the  pleas- 
urable overbalances  the  painful.  But  do  the  natures  of 
living  beings,  and  does  environment,  remain  the  same 
through  countless  ages?  Hardly  so, especially  on  an  evo- 
lutionist hypothesis.  It  is  highly  possible  that  the  relation 
between  sentient  life  and  environment  by  the  variation  of 
the  life  factor,  or  the  environment  factor,  or  both,  is  so 
changing  that,  while  the  most  painful  is  all  the  while  being 
eliminated,  the  whole  of  sentient  life  may  be  going  downin 
the  pleasure-pain  scale,  i.  e.,  becoming  more  painful.  The 
principle  calls  only  for  the  elimination  of  the  most  painful. 
In  spite  of  this  ever  active  principle,  life  may  begetting 
more  and  more  painful  all  the  while,  it  only  being  required 
that  life  cannot  be  as  painful  as  it  might  have  been  were 
the  principle  not  operating.  Life  may  then  not  be  so  far 
evolved  that  with  the  most  of  the  human  race  at  present 
life  conserving  conduct  is  not  more  painful  than  pleasur- 
able. On  account  of  changes  in  environment,  and  of  the 
sentient  life,  and  of  a  naturally  more  exacting  estimate  of 
the  pleasurable,  and  a  greater  sensitiveness  to  the  painful, 
even  admitting  all  the  while  the  most  painful  to  be  elimi- 
nated, the  whole  of  life  may  be  going  down  in  the  feeling 
scale. 

Spencer  relies  for  further  proof  of  his  conclusion  on  what 
he  considers  phenomena  of  present  life.  Thesego  toshow, 
he  holds,  that  pleasure  increases  vitality  and  pain  lowers 
it.  This  is  an  a  posteriori  proof  while  the  former  might  be 
called  a  priori.    The  former  stated  that  the  laws  of  the 


16  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

evolution  of  life  being  such  and  such,  the  state  of  things  at 
present  must  be  so  and  so.  We  have  found  reason  to 
think  that  the  a  priori  principle  may  as  well  have  led  to  A'^ery 
different  results  as  to  the  result  at  which  Spencer  arrived. 
He  then  is  thrown  back  on  empirical  proof,  viz.,  that  every 
pleasure  raises  the  tide  of  life  and  every  pain  lowers  it. 
Whether  at  the  present  stage  of  existence  pleasure  and 
pain  as  stimulators  of  activity  play  a  very  important  role 
in  the  maintenance,  furtherance,  or  destruction  of  life  mav 
be  a  matter  of  doubt.  The  organism  seems  to  be  so  con- 
stituted that  it  reacts  from  any  feeling  influence  with  any 
serious  interference  either  with  its  continuance  or  elimina- 
tion. Life  goes  on  and  elimination  takes  place  without 
much  regard  to  the  abetting  or  hindering  effect  of  feeling 
tone.  In  any  case  the  argument  would  only  go  to  show, 
that  a  pleasure  has  a  more  vitalizing  effect  than  a  pain. 
It  does  not  show  that  a  vast  deal  of  life  conserving  activ- 
ity ma3'  not  be  neutrally  or  somewhat  painfully  toned, 
nor  that  a  vast  deal  of  pleasurable  conduct  may  not  be 
life  destroying.     It  shows  merely  partial  coincidence. 

The  life  of  each  and  all  was  the  good  from  the  point  of 
view  of  evolving  life.  Life  lost  was  an  evil.  Thatconduct 
was  evil  which  lessened  life.  The  destruction  of  lower  and 
vv^eaker  finds  its  justification  from  this  point  of  view  in  its 
conduciveness  to  higher  strength  and  fuller  life.  The 
highest  good  the  summum  honum  was  the  greatest  total- 
ity of  life  in  each  and  all.  This  is  the  test  of  good  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  evolution  of  life.  People  in  general, 
urges  Spencer,  can  only  think  this  true  if  life  at  the  same 
time  means  pleasurable  life.  This  is,  however,  let  us  re- 
peat, not  a  deduction  from  the  process  of  evolving  life,  but 
a  hedonistic  view  of  life,  which  Spencer  tries  to  put  into 
the  evolutionary  standard.  The  fundamental  principles 
of  the  two  views  of  the  good  are  different.  Life  says  the 
one,  pleasure  says  the  other.  The}'  may  partially  coincide, 
but  their  goals  are  different.  Spencer  has  failed  to  show 
a  necessary  connection  betw^een  the  good  from  an  evolu- 


The  Moral  Ideal  17 

tion  of  life  point  of  view,  and  the  good  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  hedonist.  Completeness  of  life  in  each  and 
all,  is  what  Spencer  leaves  us  with  so  far  as  his  evolutional 
principles  go.  The  hedonistic  good  may  be  the  only  tena- 
ble moral  end,  but  biological  evolution  neither  necessitates 
it  nor  has  a  word  to  sav  in  its  favor. 


CHAPTER  II 

LESLIE  Stephen's  doctrine  of  the  moral  ideal 

Society,  says  Stephen,  is  not  a  mere  aggregate  of  indi- 
viduals but  an  organic  growth.  While  its  properties  can 
be  studied  separately  and  cannot  be  inferred  directly  from 
the  characters  of  the  component  individuals,  we  cannot 
fully  describe  the  social  organism  by  an  a  priori  method. 
We  can  only  show  how  different  parts  of  the  structure 
mutually  imply  each  other  and  how  that,  given  the  whole, 
the  part  could  not  be  otherwise.  By  this  is  gained  the 
simple  recognition  that  there  must  be  laws,  and  discover- 
able laws,  of  social  growth  which  are  essentially  relevant 
to  the  investigation. 

Every  organism  whether  social  or  individual  represents 
the  product  of  an  indefinite  series  of  adjustments  between 
the  organism  and  its  environment.  Every  permanent 
property  represents  a  correspondence  between  the  organ- 
ism and  some  permanent  conditions  of  life. 

The  evolution  theory  shifts  the  ethical  problem  by  re- 
cognizing the  sense  in  which  the  evolution  of  history  is  the 
solution  of  the  problem.  It  tells  us  how  to  solve  the  prob- 
lem, and  by  it  we  may  gain  conclusions  concerning  the  na- 
ture and  conditions  of  the  ethical  problem  which,  Stephen 
thinks,  may  fairly  be  called  scientific. 

The  problem  which  Stephen  sets  before  himself  then  is  to 
discover  the  scientific  form  of  morality.  His  data  are 
actual  moral  sentiments  and  the  part  they  play  in  the 
process  of  evolution.  It  is  rather  actual  morality  than  an 
ideal  moral  code  that  is  to  be  the  subject  matter  of  a 
science  of  ethics. 

After  this  statement  of  the  ethical  problem  Stephen 
elaborates  his  theory  of  motives  as  a  preliminary  to  his 
statement   of  the  nature  of  the  moral  law.     His  position 


The  Moral  Ideal  19 

is  that  of  the  psychological  hedonist,  modified  to  fit  in 
with  the  evolutionary  doctrine. 

Conduct  is  determined  by  feeling.  It  is  a  scientific  fact 
that  we  avoid  pain  as  such,  and  seek  pleasure  as  such. 
An}^  other  alleged  motive  must  be  commensurate  with 
pleasure  or  pain,  and  is  in  fact  but  a  pain  or  pleasure  high- 
er or  lower  in  kind. 

Human  actions  fall  under  the  law  of  determination  by 
feeling.  This  feeling  to  move  us  must  be  present.  If  it 
seems  to  be  a  pleasure  to  come  that  is  the  motive,  it  is  really 
a  foretaste  of  that  pleasure,  it  is  representative.  The  will 
is  always  determined  by  the  actual  painfulness  or  pleas- 
antness at  the  moment  of  choosing. 

Volition  moves  in  the  path  of  least  resistance.  The  pro- 
cess of  willing  consists  in  rehearsing  the  two  modes  of 
conduct  which  present  themselves  to  the  mind  and  follow- 
ing the  easiest,  i.  e.,  pleasantest.  In  so  far  as  we  are  rea- 
sonable we  are  affected  by  representative  pleasures  as  well 
as  by  those  near  at  hand. 

In  a  struggle  between  any  two  lines  of  conduct,  Stephen 
goes  on  to  say,  there  are  both  reason  and  emotion  on  both 
sides.  Yet  the  more  reasonable  the  individual  the  more  will 
those  emotions  rule  him,  which  have  a  view  to  the  future. 
These  emotions  result  in  time  in  a  fixed  habit  which  may 
act  without  calling  the  emotion  into  consciousness.  The 
power  here  is  in  the  hidden  emotion  and  not  in  the  intel- 
lectual habit.  The  feelings  are  not  superseded  by  reason  as 
we  advance  in  the  scale,  but  the  method  of  activity  is  more 
complex.  Laws  of  conduct  cannot  be  deduced  from  the 
conception  of  reasonableness  or  consistency.  Any  kind  of 
conduct  will  satisfy  that  condition  if  the  objective  reason 
be  converted  into  the  subjective  cause  for  the  action. 

Yet  the  development  of  reason  implies  more  than  a  mere 
superiority  in  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends.  Intellec- 
tual and  emotional  development  going  on  together,  new 
sets  of  emotions  call  for  satisfaction  as  the  capacity  for 
satisfying  desires  becomes  greater.    Yet  however  different 


20  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

the  feelings  thev  are  somehow  commensurable.  Each 
person  will  have  some  tendency  stronger  than  any  of  the 
others.  His  reason  will  subordinate  others  to  this,  and 
bring  about  a  certain  unity  in  the  result.  If  we  seek  to 
discover  which  type  of  conduct  is  the  most  reasonable,  we 
have  to  find  our  answer  in  the  evolution  theory. 

In  everv  reasoning  agent  each  impulse  is  subordinated 
to  the  whole.  Ever}'  such  agent  represents  a  certain  type. 
So  long  as  the  end  and  the  conditions  are  fixed  we  can  give 
a  precise  meaning  to  the  word  type.  Yet  even  in  the  case 
of  the  animal  where  there  is  no  such  fixity,  we  may  describe 
his  activity  in  holding  his  own  against  the  surrounding 
pressure  and  the  active  competition  of  innumerable  rivals, 
his  altering  himself  and  to  a  certain  extent  his  environ- 
ment, his  working  for  success  in  the  struggle,  as  a  slow 
elaboration  of  types.  The  process  of  evolution  must  at 
every  moment  be  a  process  of  discovering  a  maximum  of 
efficiency,  and  this  by  the  acquisition  of  certain  general 
qualities  in  the  individuals. 

And  yet,  as  before  intimated,  the  reason  of  conduct  is 
always  its  quality  in  pleasure-pain  terms.  We  maj'  view 
conduct  either  as  painful  or  pleasurable,  or  as  conducive 
or  non-conducive  to  the  permanent  existence  of  the  agent. 
A  man  will  do  what  pleases  him,  and  if  he  is  to  live  must 
do  what  is  good  for  him.  The  useful  in  the  sense  of  pleas- 
ure-giving must  approximately  coincide  wnth  the  useful  in 
the  sense  of  life-preserving.  This,  holds  Stephen,  is  a  fun- 
damental evolutionistic  doctrine.  The  agent  that  delights 
in  states  which  generally  have  pernicious  consequences 
is  in  so  far  self-destructive.  So  far  as  any  agent  takes 
pleasure  in  conduct  conducive  to  his  preservation  he  has  a 
better  chance  for  survival. 

An  instinct  deeply  seated  then  is  presumably  useful.  The 
process  by  which  the  correlation  of  pernicious  and  painful 
acts  is  worked  out  is  one  which  by  its  very  nature  takes 
many  generations.  Races  survive  in  virtue  of  the  com- 
pleteness of  the  correlation.   An  instinct  grows  and  decays 


The  Moral  Ideal  21 

not  so  much  on  account  of  its  effects  on  the  individtial  as 
on  the  effects  on  the  race.  The  animal  which  on  the  whole 
is  better  adapted  for  continuing  its  species  will  have  an 
advantage  in  the  struggle,  even  though  it  may  not  be  so 
well  adapted  for  pursuing  its  own.  Hence  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  consider  the  relation  between  the  race  and  the  in- 
dividual, and  what  modification  this  relation  will  neces- 
sitate in  the  principles  already  laid  down. 

We  must  look  on  society  not  only  as  a  mechanical  aggre- 
gate, but  more  especially  as  an  organized  virhole.  We  can- 
not distinguish  as  ultimate,  qualities  as  useful  to  the  race, 
and  as  useful  to  the  individual.  Man  is  both  an  mdividual 
and  a  social  product,  and  every  instinct  both  social  and 
self-regarding.  It  is  only  in  degree  that  we  may  speak  of 
social  and  individual  instincts.  Man's  conduct  is  deter- 
mined by  the  social  factor,  as  well  as  b}'  inherited  tenden- 
cies, and  depends  more  or  less  directly  upon  the  co-operation 
of  others. 

In  viewing  society  as  an  organism  we  must  take  into  ac- 
count the  implied  division  of  functions,  and  those  qualities 
developed  through  the  social  union  which  are  not  immedi- 
ately dedaciblefrom  the  properties  of  the  individual  without 
reference  to  that  union. 

The  race  forms  the  social  organism  or  tissue.  The  typical 
organism  is  that  which  is  best  fitted  for  all  the  conditions 
of  life,  or  in  other  words  which  has  the  strongest  vitality. 
It  is  preferable  to  use  the  term  tissue,  as  the  race  lacks  the 
real  unity  of  an  organism  highly  developed.  It  is  of  a 
lower  type  which  consists  of  mutually  connected  parts 
spreading  out  independently,  in  dependence  upon  external 
conditions,  and  capable  of  indefinite  extension  not  of  united 
growth.  The  unity  which  we  attribute  to  it  consists  in 
this,  that  every  individual  is  dependent  upon  his  neighbors, 
and  thus  every  modification  arising  in  one  part  is  capable 
of  being  directly  propagated  in  every  other  part. 

The  social  evolution  means  the  evolution  of  a  vStrong 
social  tissue;    the  best  type  is  the  type  implied  by  the 


22  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

strongest  tissue;  and  the  correlation  between  painful  and 
pernicious,  pleasurable  and  beneficial,  is  to  be  understood 
by  interpreting  the  pernicious  and  the  beneficial  with  ref- 
erence to  the  tissue,  whilst  painful  and  pleasurable  refer  to 
the  instincts  generated  in  the  socialized  being.  It  is  the 
vigorous  tissue  which  prevails  in  the  struggle,  and  fitness 
for  forming  such  tissue  is  the  criterion  of  a  successful  elab- 
oration of  the  type. 

Society  is  to  be  regarded  then,  according  to  Stephen,  as 
an  organic  structure,  dependent  for  its  existence  upon  the 
maintenance  of  certain  relations  between  its  members, 
more  complicated  in  proportion  to  the  complexion  of  the 
whole.  Its  development  implies,  therefore,  the  development 
of  customs  in  the  race,  and  habits  in  the  individuals.  There 
must  then  be  certain  rules  of  conduct  which  are  observed 
by  all  in  order  that  corresponding  rules  may  be  observed 
by  each.  To  trace  the  development  of  the  society,  then,  is 
to  trace  the  development  of  the  custom.  If  we  could  ex- 
tend habit  to  cover  any  mode  of  conduct  which  can  be 
brought  under  any  general  formula,  and  is  practical  under 
assignable  conditions,  we  might  apply  it  to  conduct  which 
must  continue  as  life  continues,  and  to  that  which  implies 
in  addition  to  life  a  particular  state  of  desire  and  aversion 
in  the  living  being. 

What  is  true  of  habit,  Stephen  holds,  is  also  true  of  cus- 
toms. The  whole  social  structure  must  rest,  in  the  last 
resort,  upon  theexistence  of  certain  organic  customs  which 
cannot  be  explained  from  without.  They  depend  for  their 
force  and  vitality'  upon  the  instincts  of  the  individual  as 
modified  by  the  social  factor. 

Considering  society  from  the  scientific  point  of  view,  we 
see  what  is  implied  in  a  law.  It  implies  a  certain  social 
structure  and  a  certain  type  of  character  in  the  members 
of  that  society.  To  every  kind  of  association  of  the  mem- 
bers there  corresponds  some  kind  of  custom  and  therefore 
of  law.  The  social  organism  is  at  once  means  and  end.  It 
develops  qualities  in  the    individual  not  essential  to  him, 


The  Moral  Ideal  23 

by  means  of  the  social  pressure.    These  are  however  of  use 
to  society. 

The  end  must  be  considered  as  the  society  capable  of 
maintaining  itself  in  the  general  equilibrium.  The  social 
properties  developed  may  be  regarded,  either  as  the  condi- 
tions of  social  vitality,  or  as  laws  imposed  upon  individual 
members.  Hence  we  must  find  these  social  qualities.  The 
moral  law  defines  some  of  the  most  important  character- 
istics so  developed,  and  is,  therefore,  a  statement  in  part 
of  the  qualities  in  virtue  of  which  society  is  possible. 

The  law  of  nature  has  but  one  precept,  "Be  strong." 
Nature  has  but  one  punishment,  decay,  culminatingin  death 
or  extirpation;  and  takes  cognizance  of  but  one  evil,  the 
weakness   which  leads  to   decay.      The  great    law   "Be 
strong"  has  two  main  branches,  "Be  prudent"  and  "Be 
virtuous."    The  one  takes  the  individual  into  account  pri- 
marily, the  other  society.     Is  morality  prudence?     Is  pru- 
dence morality  ?     Can  both  be  resolved  into  right  reason 
or  into  a  desire  for  happiness?    In  what  sense  has  the 
moral  code  a  reference  to  the  welfare  of  the  society  ?     The 
latter  question  would  be  answered  could   we  but  deduce 
the  particular  laws  of  conduct  from  the  laws  of  nature, 
and  then  show  which  of  these  laws  coincide  with  the  moral 
law,  and  why.   The  difficulty  is  that  the  moral  law  cannot 
be  accurately  codified.      The  virtues  may,   however,   be 
roughly  classified  thus:  first,  "Be  strong,"  or  "All  weak- 
ness is  an  evil,"  second,  "Be  temperate"  or  "All  excess  is 
an  evil,"  third,  "Be  truthful"  or  "All  falsehood  is  an  evil," 
and,  finally,  socially  considered,  "All  injury  to  our  fellows 
is  an  evil."   Courage,  once  a  primary  virtue,  is  now  regarded 
merely  as  one  manifestation  of  a  character  which  is  fitted 
for  all  the  requirements  of  social  existence.     Likewise  in 
regard  to  the    virtues  of  temperance  and  chastity,    the 
moral  law  condemns  those  qualities  in  respect  of  which  the 
individual  deviates  from  the  type  prescribed  by  the  condi- 
tions of  social  welfare.     The  virtue  of  truth  grows  slowly, 
but  is  a  condition  of  societv's  welfare.    The  external  rule 


24  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

becomes  "Lie  not,"  and  has  an  approximate  correspond- 
ent in  the  internal  rule,  "Be  trust  worth}'."  The  latter  is 
of  course  the  higher.  The  social  virtues,  the  last  in  the 
series,  are  justice  and  benevolence.  These  do  not  really 
conflict,  for  the  command,  "Be  benevolent,"  carries  with 
it  the  condition  that  your  benevolence  should  be  regulated 
by  reason,  and  therefore  should  not  benefit  one  man  at  the 
expense  of  the  societ3^  The  command  "  Be  just"  carries 
with  it  in  the  same  way  the  condition  that,  whatever  func- 
tion you  are  discharging,  or  in  whatever  capacity  you  are 
acting,  you  must  be  animated  by  public  spirit,  that  is,  by 
motives  coincident  with  the  dictates  of  a  reasonable  benev- 
olence. Thus  in  any  case  the  conclusion  is  that  the  moral 
law  prescribes  a  type  of  character  which  includes  amongst 
its  manifestations  a  desire  to  discharge  all  the  social  func- 
tions, and  which  therefore  implies  fitness  to  form  part  of 
a  sound  social  state. 

The  author  next  considers  happiness  as  the  criterion  of 
moralitj'.  It  is  an  essential  part  of  the  evolution  theory 
that  the  two  characteristics  of  useful  conduct,  the  agent's 
happiness  and  his  preservation,  coincide.  There  must  be 
a  correlation  between  the  pernicious  and  painful  on  the 
one  hand,  and  on  the  other  hand,  between  the  beneficial 
and  the  agreeable.  By  appljang  this  principle  to  the  social 
organism,  we  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  devel- 
opment of  the  society  implies  the  development  of  certain 
moral  instincts  in  the  individual,  so  that  he  finds  pleasure 
or  pain  in  what  is  socially  beneficial  or  pernicious.  If  we 
ask  why  does  a  man  act  so  and  so,  we  must  always  an- 
swer, because  it  is  pleasant.  This  is  the  reason  of  his 
conduct.  But  why  is  such  a  course  pleasant?  Becausehis 
character  is  so  constituted. 

Stephen's  task  is  now  to  show  the  connection  between 
the  evolutionistic  and  the  utilitarian  view  of  the  moral 
ideal.  We  have  to  justify  morality  both  as  happiness 
giving  and  as  life-preserving.  For,  says  Stephen,  the  end 
must  always  be  happiness  either  of  self  or  others,  and  we 


The  Moral  Ideal  25 

have  already  seen  that  the  moral  is  the  life  preserving. 
The  very  principle  of  evolution  implies  that  there  must  be 
at  least  an  approximate  coincidence,  and  there  is  no  appa- 
rent a  priori  season  why  the  coincidence  should  not  be 
indefinitely  close.  The  rules  which  formerly  appeared  as 
conditions  of  maintaining  the  vigor  of  the  race,  will  now 
appear  as  conditions  of  securing  its  happiness.  We  have 
to  inquire  how  the  two  are  related.  Utihtarianism  being 
the  system  which  endeavors  to  construct  the  moral  rule 
exclusively  from  the  principleof  happiness,  Stephen  frankly 
states  that  his  problem  is  to  ask  what  modification  must 
be  imposed  upon  this  system  in  order  to  make  it  square 
with  the  theory  here  adopted.  The  utilitarian  erred  by 
regarding  society  as  an  aggregate  of  units  instead  of  as  an 
organism.  The  utilitarian  seeks  the  greatest  happiness  of 
the  greatest  number.  While  utilitarianism  lays  down 
happiness  as  the  criterion,  evolutionism  lays  down  as  the 
criterion  the  health  of  society.  These  necessarily  tend  to 
coincide.  The  conditions  might  conceivably  be  laid  down, 
either  by  saying  that  the  various  social  functions  are 
discharged,  and  the  relation  between  the  social  organs 
maintained  in  a  certain  equilibrium,  or  by  trying  to  sum 
up  the  various  modes  of  conduct  which  produce  happiness 
to  its  various  members ;  but  we  only  get  a  tenable  and 
simple  law  when  we  start  from  the  structure  which  is  itself 
a  unit. 

Only  the  evolutionist  view  gives  us  the  true  total  view 
of  morality  as  the  health  of  the  organism.  The  organism 
grows  as  does  the  individual.  The  moral  instincts  of  the 
society  correspond  in  the  same  w^ay  to  the  social  develop- 
ment, and  express  at  every  instant  the  judgment  formed 
of  the  happiness  and  misery  caused  by  corresponding 
modes  of  conduct.  As  the}'  become  organized,  the  whole 
society  becomes  moreefficiently  constituted,  and  its  stand- 
ard of  happiness  also  modified.  We  may,  therefore,  say 
that  at  any  period  the  utilitarian  judgment  must  be  satis- 
fied.   Now  why  should  a  man  be  virtuous?    The  answer 


26  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

depends  upon  the  meaning  we  give  to  the  term  virtuous. 
A  man  is  virtuous  or  the  reverse,  so  far  as  he  does  or  does 
not  coniform  to  the  type  defined  by  the  healthy  condition 
of  the  social  organism.  The  problem  is  to  find  a  scientific 
basis  for  the  act  of  conduct.  The  sanction  must  supply 
the  motive  power  by  which  individuals  are  lo  be  made 
virtuous.  What  is  the  relation  between  virtue  and  happi- 
ness? We  have  to  ask  these  questions:  first,  whether  the 
virtuous  man  as  such  is  happier  than  the  vicious;  second- 
ly, whether  it  is  worth  while  on  prudential  grounds  for 
the  vicious  to  acquire  the  virtuous  character;  thirdly, 
whether  it  can  be  worth  while  in  the  same  sense  for  the 
vicious  man  to  observe  the  external  moral  law? 

The  ordinary  man  regards  health  as  the  first,  most 
essential,  and  most  efficient  condition  of  happiness.  Upon 
the  evolutionist  doctrine  the  whole  process  of  nature  im- 
plies a  correlation  between  the  painful  and  the  pernicious, 
and  an  elaboration  of  types  in  which  this  problem  is  solved 
by  an  ever  increasing  efficiency  and  complexity  of  organi- 
zation. The  typical  or  ideal  character  then  at  any  period 
of  development  corresponds  to  the  maximum  of  vitality. 
This  type  represents  the  happiest,  it  would  seem,  as  well 
as  the  strongest.  The  typical  man  is  so  far  the  happiest. 
He  is  not  only  the  virtuous  man  but  he  who  obeys  the 
great  law  of  nature,  "  Be  strong." 

Happiness  is  also  correlated  with  such  admirable  qual- 
ities as  beauty,  strength,  intellectual  vigor,  aesthetic 
sensibility,  prudence,  industrv.  There  is  no  reason  for 
supposing  negative  virtue  only,  to  coincide  with  happi- 
ness. We  must  include  with  abstinence  from  immoral 
conduct,  positive  morality  and  the  qualities  above  named. 
There  is  a  necessary  connection  between  virtue  and  happi- 
ness, inasmuch  as  there  is  a  necessary  connection  between 
virtue  and  total  efficiency,  and  as  virtue  forms  a  necessary 
part  of  efficiency.  Are  the  good  happier  than  the  bad  ? 
There  are  occasions  when  we  have  to  choose  between  two 


The  Moral  Ideal  27 

masters.     This  way  is  the  path  of  duty,  that  is  the  path 
of  happiness. 

We  may  as  well  try  to  square  the  circle,  says  Stephen, 
as  to  show  an  absolute  coincidence  between  happiness  and 
virtue.  In  fact  they  do  not  coincide.  For  the  virtuous 
man  his  own  happiness  is  not  his  sole  ultimate  aim,  and 
the  clearest  proof  that  a  given  action  will  not  contribute 
to  it  will  therefore  not  deter  him  from  action.  We  cannot 
say  that  morality  and  prudence  are  always  coincident.  In 
exhorting  a  man  to  be  virtuous  we  really  exhort  him  to 
develop  his  nature  upon  the  lines  which  the  experience  of 
the  race  has  conclusively  proved  to  coincide  with  the  gene- 
ral conditions  of  social  and  individual  welfares. 

This  is  to  exhort  him  to  acquire  a  quality  of  character 
which,  under  normal  conditions,  and  in  the  vast  majority 
of  particular  cases,  will  make  him  happier  because  better 
fitted  for  the  world  in  which  he  lives,  capable  of  wider  and 
more  enduring  aims,  and  susceptible  to  motives  which 
will  call  out  the  fullest  and  most  harmonious  play  of  all 
the  faculties  of  his  nature.  But  it  is  also  to  exhort  him  to 
acquire  a  quality  which  will  in  many  cases  make  him  less 
fit  than  the  less  moral  man,  for  getting  the  greatest  amount 
of  happiness  from  a  given  combination  of  circumstances. 

Moral  precepts  then  are  the  statement  of  the  conditions 
of  social  welfare,  the  sum  of  the  preservative  tendencies 
of  society.  The  end  is  the  health  of  the  organism,  and  the 
vital  forces  of  this  organism  are  its  moral  rules  and  senti- 
ments. The  truly  virtuous  man  is  thet3'pical  man  whose 
character  conforms  to  the  conditions  of  social  vitality. 

In  this  treatmentof  Stephen's  we  have  a  fuller  statement 
of  the  meaning  of  Spencer's  totality'' of  life  in  self,  offspring, 
and  fellowmen.  The  individual's  life  is  full  of  meaning  just 
because  of  the  social  reference.  In  the  complex  activities 
of  this  society,  or  in  man's  participation  in  them  we  find 
man's  highest  good.  He  lives  his  life  to  the  full  in  all  the 
ways  which  are  of  use  to  himself  and  especially  to  society. 
Whether  these  activities  be  strictly  of  the  moral  sort  com- 


28  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

monly  so-called,  or  whether  they  are  the  exercise  of  man's 
intellectual,  eesthetic,  and  social  nature  in  general,  they 
make  up  for  the  man  his  realization  of  the  good,  the 
healthy  functioning  of  the  whole. 

Stephen,  however,  like  Spencer,  holds  to  a  dual  conception 
of  the  good.  It  is  not  enough  that  the  individual's  good 
be  found  in  all  the  various  activities  which  make  up 
the  richness  of  his  life,  it  must  also  be  expressed  in  hedonis- 
tic terms.  Stephen  is  a  hedonist,  historically,  as  well  as 
an  evolutionist.  "J.  S.  Mill"  he  says,  "was  the  Gamaliel 
at  whose  feet  I  sat."  The  moral  ideal,  though  inade- 
quately expressed  by  the  older  utilitarians,  must  still  be 
described  in  hedonistic  terms,  though  given  a  fuller  mean- 
ing by  the  evolutionistic  doctrines. 

The  first  necessity  in  estimating  the  value  of  Stephen's 
doctrine,  as  indeed  was  the  case  with  Spencer,  is  to  find 
whether  he  is  justified  in  finding  this  close  and  necessary 
relation  between  the  hedonistic  and  evolutionistic  ends. 
If  we  find  that  this  union  is  unnecessary,  and  even  unjus- 
tifiable, it  will  then  remain  to  examine  the  validity  of  the 
purely  evolutionistic  description  of  the  good,  as  expressing 
the  essence  of  those  facts  of  morals  the  discussion  of  which 
belongs  to  the  province  of  the  ethicist. 

As  an  evolutionist  Stephen  holds  that  the  individual 
must  develop  first,  conduct  that  makes  for  his  own  pres- 
ervation, and,  secondly,  that  conduct  which  makes  for  the 
preservation  of  the  tribe.  This  is  simply  what  the  process 
requires  of  him  if  he  is  to  survive  as  an  individual  in  a  tribe 
which  survives.  Whatever  motives  he  has  must  motive 
him  in  these  directions. 

Again  as  a  psychological  hedonist,  Stephen  holds,  that 
all  individuals  must  be  motived  by  pleasure  and  pain.  In 
the  preceding  chapter  we  have  examined  this  view  as  put 
forth  by  Spencer.  We  were  led  to  reject  it  as  being  only  a 
part  explanation  of  the  motivation  of  conduct.  It  is  not 
sufficiently  a  guide,  not  clearly  enough  a  sole  guide,  to 
warrant  that  correlation  between  the  pleasurable  and  the 


The  Moral  Ideal  29 

life-preserving  which  Stephen  regards  as  an  essential  part 
of  the  evolution  theory.  This  contention  removed  we  have 
no  reason  a  priori  {or  supposing  any  such  thorough  going 
relation  between  the  evolutionistic  standard  and  the  hedo- 
nistic standard  as  Stephen  insists  upon. 

The  chief  claim  that  Stephen  makes  upon  the  individual 
after  all  is  that  he  shall  act  morally  or  at  least  so  that  the 
social  organism  may  be  sustained.  Stephen  goes  so  far  as 
to  say  that  both  the  preservation  and  the  happiness  are 
for  society  not  for  the  individual.  The  coincidence  between 
happiness  and  virtue  are  only  approximate.  It  is  not  at 
all  certain  that  the  individual  will  be  happy  if  virtuous. 
If  very  virtuous  he  will  miss  the  greatest  amount  of  hap- 
piness. The  race  as  a  whole  is  happier  the  greater  the 
morality  of  its  individual  components. 

There  being  no  necessity  then  of  coincidence  between  the 
welfare  of  the  race  and  the  happiness  of  the  individual,  we 
have  no  reason  other  than  an  empirical  one  for  supposing 
a  coincidence  between  evolutionistic  and  hedonistic  ends 
according  to  Stephen's  treatment.  Stephen  himself  for- 
sakes his  fundamental  hedonistic  principle  that  the  individ- 
ual must  be  a  pleasure  seeker. 

This  cannot  satisfy  the  thorough  going  hedonist.  Life 
conserving  conduct  is  only  a  good  for  him  in  so  far  as  it 
produces  happiness.  Ere  he  can  accept  the  evolutionist 
criterion  he  must  be  sure  that  a  faithful  observance  of 
life-preserving  conduct  will  be  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  best 
means  towards  procuring  the  greatest  happiness.  This 
is  in  no  sense  guaranteed  on  a  priori  grounds.  The  indi- 
vidual in  the  struggle  acts  from  other  motives  as  well  as 
pleasure-pain,  and  there  is  no  guarantee  that  self  and  race 
preserving  conduct  will  be  that  which  brings  to  the  indi- 
vidual the  greatest  amount  of  pleasure.  The  question  is 
still  at  issue.  Is  conduct  good  because  it  is  happiness 
giving  or  because  it  is  life  conserving? 

Nor  does  Stephen  make  out  an  extremely  good  case  for 
their  coincidence  u,pon  a  posteriori  grounds.     The  organ- 


30  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

ism  must  be  healthy,  and  the  individuals  must  be  exponents 
of  the  condition  of  the  organism's  vitality.  It  is  not  guar- 
anteed that  this  will  result  most  happily  for  the  individual, 
nor  in  the  greatest  amount  of  agreeable  feeling  for  the  race. 
Stephen's  sanctioning  this  criterion  of  conduct  by  its  pleas- 
ure-giving properties,  is  again  to  beg  the  whole  question. 
This  cannot  be  its  sanction,  if  pleasure  is  not  the  clear 
product  of  the  conduct.  And  in  the  facts  of  the  develop- 
ment experience  this  w^ould  be  a  doubtful  sanction  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  evolutionist. 

It  would  seem  then  as  if  it  were  a  real  forcing  of  the 
position  to  connect  hedonism  with  the  evolutionistic  inter- 
pretation. The  two  are  not  necessarily  connected.  It  has 
not  been  shown  that  the  two  are  not  incongruous.  One 
is  led  to  a  considerable  doubt  as  to  the  possibility  of  giv- 
ing conduct  the  title  good  from  the  two  standards  at  the 
same  time. 

Even  supposing  that  virtuous  or  life  conservingconduct 
does  on  the  whole  bring  a  surplusof  pleasure,  it  is  certainly 
a  huge  assumption  to  say  that  as  a  consequence  does  vir- 
tuous conduct  find  herein  its  justification.  Any  method 
of  ethics  would  admit  more  or  less  of  an  agreement,  but 
this  does  not  warrant  the  hedonist  in  holding  up  his 
standard  as  a  measure  of  the  worth  of  thie  morahty  of  the 
evolutionist,  a  statement  of  the  conditions  of  social  vigor. 
The  task  proves  too  great  for  Stephen  as  for  Spencer  to 
make  morality  essentially  that  conduct  which  is  at  once 
the  condition  of  the  vitality  of  the  social  organism,  or  of 
the  greatest  totality  of  life  in  each  and  all,  and  also  that 
which  makes  for  the  greatest  amount  of  agreeable  feeling. 
Logically  for  Stephen  we  are  obliged  to  leave  behind,  the 
hedonistic  demands  in  our  evaluation,  and  accept  as  his 
position  that  of  the  evolutionist,  regarding  as  the  good, 
the  healthy  social  organism. 

The  term  organism  is  much  more  convenient  to  express 
our  conception  of  society  than  is  the  older  mathematical 
description  of  society  as  an  aggregate  of  units.     It  brings 


The  Moral  Ideal  31 

out  the  relation  and  interdependence  between  the  constitu- 
ent members  of  society  which  was  taken  but  Httle  into  the 
account  by  the  older  conception.  Yet  of  course  the  term 
is  methodological  and  will  be  retained  merely  as  long  as 
it  is  useful  as  an  hypothesis.  It  is  a  useful  term  borrowed 
from  biology,  cind  while  it  is  probably  but  temporary  it 
has  proved  an  excellent  hypothesis  for  purposes  of  scien- 
tific description. 

The  term  healthy  is  borrowed  from  the  individual  or- 
ganism, and  indicates  that  condition  of  the  individual 
when  all  functioning  is  fullest  and  most  harmonious.  When 
we  apply  this  term  to  the  social  organism,  that  is  to  the 
number  of  individuals  acting  now  as  individual  units  and 
now  almost  as  a  social  unit,  we  find  it  expressing  that 
condition  in  the  society  and  in  the  several  members,  when 
the  functioning  is  fullest  in  each  individual,  and  when  the 
functionings  of  the  individuals  are  most  harmonious,  thus 
making  possible  the  greatest  totality  of  life  in  all  concerned. 
The  conditions  of  this  health  of  the  organism,  which  for 
Stephen  are  the  moral  laws  of  society,  are  therefore  the 
conditions  of  the  greatest  totality  of  life  in  each  and  all. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  method  of  describing  the 
same  end  as  that  set  forth  by  Spencer  and  by  Darwin,  is  a 
great  advance  upon  the  statements  by  these  writers.  The 
endeavor  to  show  clearly  those  fundamental  principles  of 
action,  which  members  of  society  must  observe  in  order  to 
work  together  harmoniously  for  the  general  good  and 
development  of  all,  is  a  necessary  step,  and  consistently 
taken  by  Stephen. 

Whether  to  this  evolutionist  end  the  term  moral  can  be 
legitimately  applied  must  next  be  discussed. 


CHAPTER  III 

CHARLES  DARWIN   AND    THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY 

In  addition  to  the  doctrines  laid  down  by  Herbert 
Spencer  and  Leslie  Stephen,  it  is  only  just  to  speak  of  the 
doctrines  of  two  other  great  evolutionists,  Darwin  and 
Huxley. 

Darwin's  conception  of  the  ethical  end  is  very  different 
from  the  hedonistic  conception  of  Spencer  and  Stephen, 
It  is  somewhat  crude  in  its  statement  but  it  conveys  the 
real  essence  of  the  good  from  the  strictly  evolutionistic 
point  of  view. 

It  is  referred  to  incidentally  in  that  chapter  of  the  De- 
scent of  Man  in  which  the  development  of  the  moral  sense 
is  discussed.  In  the  case  of  the  lower  animals,  he  says,  it 
seems  much  more  appropriate  to  speak  of  their  social 
instincts  as  having  been  developed  for  the  general  good, 
rather  than  for  the  general  happiness  of  the  species.  Then 
jfoUows  his  famous  definition  of  the  general  good,  as  the 
rearing  of  the  greatest  number  of  individuals  in  full  vigor 
and  health  with  all  their  faculties  perfect,  under  the  con- 
ditions to  which  they  are  subjected.  And  as  the  social 
instincts  both  of  man  and  the  lower  animals  have  been 
developed  by  nearly  the  same  steps,  it  would  be  advisable 
to  take  as  the  standard  of  morality  the  general  good  or 
welfare,  rather  than  the  general  happiness. 

Darwin  thus  does  not  think  of  agreeable  feeling  in  self 
and  others  as  being  the  goal  of  moral  effort.  Biologically 
and  sociologically  there  is  something  more  important  than 
that.  It  agrees  practically  with  the  purely  evolutionistic 
statements  of  the  ideal  according  to  Spencer  and  Stephen, 
the  greatest  totalit}'  of  life  in  length  and  breadth  in  self 
and  others,  and  the  health  of  the  social  organism. 


The  Moral  Ideal  33 

The  only  criticism  to  be  made  of  this  frank  and  clear 
statement  by  Darwin  of  the  ideal  from  the  evolutionistic 
point  of  view,  must  be  made  by  inquiring  carefully  whether 
or  not  such  an  ideal  can  express  the  real  meaning  of  our 
moral  life,  whether  there  is  such  an  agreement  between 
the  evolutionistic  and  the  ethical  points  of  view,  whether 
in  fact  they  coalesce.  This  discussion  will  be  taken  up  in 
the  next  chapter. 

Huxley's  argument  proceeds  along  different  lines,  and 
far  from  making  the  evolution  process  the  great  promoter 
of  happiness  and  morals,  bitterly  arraigns  the  process 
from  the  moral  and  happiness-producing  standards. 

Professor  Huxlev  delivered  the  Romanes  Lecture  for 
1893.  He  chose  for  his  subject  "Evolution  and  Ethics," 
and  in  this  lecture  defines  his  position  as  to  the  relation 
between  the  two.  It  is  especially  interesting  coming  as  it 
does  so  late,  and  from  one  of  the  greatest  scientists  and 
evolutionists  of  our  time. 

Man  the  animal  has  worked  his  way  to  the  headship  of 
the  sentient  world,  and  has  become  the  superb  animal 
which  he  is,  in  virtue  of  his  success  in  the  struggle  for  ex- 
istence. For  his  successful  progress  as  far  as  the  savage 
state,  man  has  been  largely  indebted  to  those  qualities 
which  he  shares  with  the  ape  and  the  tiger.  But  as  man 
has  advanced  these  deeply  ingrained  qualities  have  become 
defects.  He  would  be  only  too  pleased  to  see  the  ape 
and  the  tiger  die.  These  qualities  are  branded  by  ethical 
man  as  not  reconcilable  with  ethical  principles. 

The  cosmic  process  is  evolution,  it  is  full  of  wonder  and 
beauty,  and  at  the  same  time  full  of  pain.  What  is  the 
bearing  of  these  facts  on  ethics  ?  Is  there  a  sanction  for 
morality  in  the  ways  of  the  cosmos  ? 

In  Hindostan  and  in  Ionia  in  the  ancient  days  men 
sought  to  make  existence  intelligible,  and  to  bring  the 
order  of  things  into  harmony  with  the  moral  sense  of  man. 
He  looked  the  world  and  human  life  in  the  face,  and  found 
it  as  hard  as  we  do  to  brina;  the  course  of  evolution  into 


34  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

harmony  with  even  the  elementary  requirements  of  the 
ethical  ideal  of  the  just  and  good.  The  pains  and  pleasures 
in  the  animal  world  are  clearly  not  apportioned  according 
to  desert.  Likewise  in  human  life  the  violator  of  ethical 
rules  constantly  escapes  the  punishment  which  he  deserves. 
Ignorance  is  punished  as  severely  as  wilful  wrong,  and  the 
innocent  is  made  to  suffer.  Edipus,pure  of  heart,  brought 
his  own  headlong  ruin  ;  and  Hamlet,  blameless  dreamer, 
was  dragged  into  a  world  out  of  joint.  Brought  before  the 
tribunal  of  ethics,  the  cosmos  might  well  seem  to  stand 
condemned.  The  conscience  of  man  revolted  against  the 
moral  indifference  of  nature,  and  the  microcosmic  atom 
should  have  found  the  illimitable  microcosm  guilty.  The 
problem  was  fought  out  both  in  India  and  by  the  Stoics, 
and  by  the  Tiber  as  by  the  Ganges  ethical  man  admits 
that  the  cosmos  is  too  strong  for  him.  Cosmic  nature  is 
no  school  of  virtue,  but  the  head  quarters  of  the  enemy  of 
ethical  nature.  This  ideal  wise  man  was  incompatible 
with  the  nature  of  thmgs,  and  destroying  every  bond 
which  binds  him  to  the  cosmos,  he  seeks  salvation  in  abso- 
lute renunciation. 

Evolutionary  moralists  are  probably  on  the  right  track 
in  tracing  the  origin  of  our  moral  sentiments  by  a  process 
of  evolution,  but  as  the  immoral  sentiments  have  no  less 
been  evolved,  there  is  so  far  as  much  natural  sanction  for 
the  one  as  for  the  other.  Cosmic  evolution  may  teach  us 
how  the  good  and  evil  tendencies  of  man  may  have  come 
about,  but  in  itself  it  is  incompetent  to  furnish  any  better 
reason  why  what  we  call  good  is  preferable  to  what  we 
call  evil  than  we  had  before. 

Another  fallacy  evolutional  ethics  holds  is  the  notion 
that  man  in  society  must  look  to  the  process  of  survival 
of  the  fittest  to  help  them  toward  perfection.  "Fittest" 
has  a  connotation  of  best,  and  about  "best"  there 
hangs  a  moral  flavor.  In  cosmic  nature  what  is  fittest 
depends  on  the  conditions.  Men  in  society  are  undoubt- 
edly subject  to  the  cosmic  process.     The  strongest,  the 


The  Moral  Ideal  35 

most  self-assertive,  tend  to  tread  down  the  weaker.  But 
social  progress  means  a  checking  of  the  cosmic  process  at 
every  step,  and  the  substitution  for  it  of  another  which 
may  be  called  the  ethical  process;  the  end  of  which  is  not 
the  survival  of  those  who  may  happen  to  be  the  fittest  in 
respect  of  the  whole  of  the  conditions  which  exist,  but  of 
those  who  are  ethically  the  best.  The  practice  of  that  which 
is  ethically  best  involves  a  course  of  conduct  which  is  in  all 
respects  opposed  to  that  which  leads  to  success  in  the 
cosmic  struggle  for  existence.  In  place  of  ruthless  self- 
assertion  it  demands  self-restraint;  in  place  of  thrusting 
aside  or  treading  down  all  competition,  it  requires  that  the 
individual  shall  not  merely  respect  but  shall  help  his  fel- 
lows; its  influence  is  directed  not  so  much  to  the  survival 
of  the  fittest,  as  to  the  fitting  of  as  many  as  possible  to 
survive.  Laws  and  moral  precepts  are  directed  to  the  end 
of  curbingthe  cosmic  process  and  remindingthe  individual 
of  his  duty  to  the  community.  If  the  cosmic  process  has 
no  sort  of  relation  to  moral  ends,  if  the  imitation  of  it  by 
man  is  inconsistent  with  the  first  principles  of  ethics,  what 
becomes  of  the  theory  that  would  apply  the  evolution  or 
cosmic  process  to  society?  The  ethical  process  must  not  only 
not  imitate  the  cosmic  process,  it  must  not  even  run  away 
from  it,  it  must  combat  it.  Ethical  nature  may  count  upon 
having  to  reckon  with  a  tenacious  and  powerful  enemy  as 
long  as  the  world  lasts.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is 
no  limit  to  the  extent  to  which  intelligence  and  will,  guided 
by  sound  principles  of  investigation  and  organized  in  com- 
mon effort,  may  modify  the  conditions  of  existence  for  a 
period  longer  than  that  now  covered  by  history.  To  do 
this  we  must  cast  aside  the  childish  notion  that  escape 
from  pain  and  sorrow  is  the  proper  object  of  life. 

This  estimate  of  the  relation  between  evolution  and 
ethics  by  the  great  biologist,  is,  of  course,  diametrically 
opposed  to  that  of  Spencer  and  Stephen  and  even  to  that 
of  Darwin.  And  so  far  as  an  argamentum  ad  hominem 
goes  we  may  invoke  it  as  of  equal  import  with  these  others. 


36  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

In  the  next  chapter  it  will  be  seen  that  while  Huxley  here 
expresses  a  fundamental  truth,  overlooked  by  the  other 
writers,  yet  his  position  is  an  extreme  one  and  not  to  be 
accepted  without  considerable  modification.  It  may  be 
added  just  here  that  Huxley's  contentions  and  even  Dar- 
win's have  not  been  given  that  prominent  place  in  the 
discussion  of  evolutionary  ethics  which  their  great  impor- 
tance demands. 


CHAPTER  IV 

COMPARISON  OF  ENDS,  AND  RELATION  OF  THE  DOCTRINE  OF 
EVOLUTION  TO  THE  MORAL  vSTANDARD. 

§  1.  Morality  from  the  point  of  view  oi  the  Evolution- 
ist End. 

The  evolution  of  life  affords  as  its  principle  of  explana- 
tion an  end  which  the  phenomena  of  life  and  conduct  all 
the  while  exhibit,  and  which  they  exhibit  to  an  even 
greater  extent  as  the  process  goes  on.  Inshowingthe  end 
of  the  process,  this  method  of  explanation  also  exhibits 
the  means  towards  this  end.  Life  and  conduct  may  then 
be  viewed  as  end  and  means,  and  may  in  so  far  be  explain- 
ed. 

The  means  which  are  successfully  used  in  the  life  process, 
which  tend  most  to  achieve  the  end,  and  least  to  retard 
it,  will  of  course  from  this  point  of  view  be  called  good, 
the  opposite,  bad.  Good  and  bad  conduct  then  of  this 
sort  are  means  towards  a  definite  end,  which  end  we  may 
call  the  meaning  of  the  life  process. 

What  then  is  the  end,  the  meaning  of  the  process?  It  is 
impossible  in  this  essay  to  attempt  a  discussion  of  the 
metaphysical  truth  or  meaning  of  the  world  process  con- 
sidered as  an  evolution.  Evolutionism  as  a  metaphysical 
creed  is  already  having  fruitful  results,  but  it  cannot  be 
applied  at  this  stage  to  determine  the  relation  between 
morality  and  life  in  general  considered  as  evolving.  Life 
and  conduct  here  claim  to  be  considered  for  themselves. 

Ever  since  life  first  made  its  appearance  on  the  scene,  the 
world  has  been  a  theater  on  which  life's  game  has  been 
played.  From  the  first  those  who  possessed  life  have 
struggled  to  preserve  it.  Death  has  been  life's  instrument. 
Pain  and  suffering,  pleasure  and  joy,  have  had  their  minor 


38  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

parts.  Those  possessing  life  as  the  process  went  on  have 
sought  to  keep  what  life  they  had,  and  to  increase  it. 
Then  they  have  propagated  this  life  in  offspring;  and, 
lastly,  have  sought  to  increase  it  in  fellow  men.  This 
lesson  we  have  been  so  well  taught  by  Spencer,  Darwin, 
and  Stephen,  that  at  this  time  to  mention  it  is  to  accept 
it.  The  struggle  has  been  for  life.  Severe  as  it  has  been, 
especially  in  its  first  stages,  elimination,  destruction,  and 
death  have  but  made  possible  the  further  life.  As  the  pro- 
cess went  on,  the  feature  of  increasing  life  become 
predominant.  This  is  the  most  prominent  feature  of  the 
process.  The  triple  formula  of  Spencer,  Darwin,  and  Ste- 
phen— the  greatest  totality  of  life  in  self  and  others,  the 
rearing  of  the  greatest  number  of  individuals  with  all 
their  faculties  perfect,  the  vitality  of  the  social  organism — 
may  be  taken  as  indicating  the  end  of  the  process.  It  is 
the  supreme  end,  and  from  this  standpoint  the  highest 
good.  All  that  is,  or  has  been,  a  means  to  this  end  is  rel- 
atively good.  Conduct  tending  towards  this  end  is  good 
conduct ;  conduct  tending  to  retard  it  is  bad  conduct. 

We  have  then  to  consider  what  sort  of  conduct  comes 
under  these  heads.  As  we  have  before  intimated,  any 
other  criterion  is  here  out  of  place.  Even  the  standard  of 
the  hedonist  does  not  apply.  Pleasure,  in  so  far  as  it 
furthers  life,  is  good ;  in  so  far  as  pleasurable  conduct  is 
life-destroying,  is  it  bad.  Likewise,  pain  is  bad  in  so  far 
as  it  destroys  life,  good  in  so  far  as  it  furthers  it.  Death 
itself,  though  bad  in  so  far  as  it  means  loss  of  life  on  the 
whole,  is  a  good  in  so  far  as  it  tends  to  further  other  life. 
Any  habit  or  instinct,  emotion  or  sentiment,  is  good  or 
bad  in  so  far  as  it  tends  to  bring  about  or  to  retard  this 
end. 

Under  this  latter  heading  come  the  moral  life  and  senti- 
ments of  the  community.  Morality  forms  one  grand 
means  in  the  furtherance  of  life  ;  and,  from  the  evolution- 
ist point  of  view,  morality  in  this  finds  its  raison  d'etre. 
Here  morality  is  nothing  for  its  own  sake,  because  it  is 


The  Moral  Ideal  39 

worthful  only  as  a  means  towards  the  absolutely  worth- 
ful  end.  In  so  far  as  it  is  a  means  to  this  end,  is  it  good. 
In  so  far  as  it  neither  helps  nor  retards  it,  is  it  indifferent. 
In  so  far  as  it  retards  the  end,  it  is  an  evil.  Stephen's 
great  service  in  the  field  of  evolutionist  ethics  has 
been  to  show  that  the  conditions  of  vitality  of  the  social 
organism  are  its  moral  maxims.  Moral  deeds  and  senti- 
ments, we  have  been  taught,  are,  on  the  whole,  conducive 
to  the  greatest  totality  of  life  in  self  and  others.  We 
need  not  consider  here  his  further  contention  that  this 
conduciveness  is  the  criterion  of  their  moral  worth. 

The  life  process  is  absolute  in  its  own  sphere,  is  for  it- 
self, and  is  a  fact.  It  has  its  own  ends  to  serve,  and  for 
their  furtherance  uses  the  best  means  it  knows.  The 
worthful  means  are  preserved,  those  not  worthful  risk 
elimination.  The  process  must  accordingly  be  interpreted 
from  the  standpoint  of  its  own  end.  When  we  seek  to 
label  the  process  moral  or  immoral,  we  are  simply  en- 
deavoring to  apply  a  foreign  category  which  to  it  is  mean- 
ingless. From  its  own  point  of  view  it  simply  cares  not 
for  such  spiritual  distinctions.  It  has  used  means  which 
we  would  call  non-moral,  and  means  which  we  would 
call  immoral,  but  it  has  also  used  moral  principles,  even 
reckoning  them  as  the  sine  qua  non  of  its  vitality.  The 
social  organism  must  live,  and  must  increase,  must  have 
its  greater  totality  of  life,  and  it  uses  morality  as  a  means 
towards  their  end. 

Looked  at  from  this  point  of  view,  the  life  process  is 
both  non-moral  and  immoral,  as  well  as  moral.  Yet  this 
is  merely  from  the  moral  standpoint  and  is  not  evolu- 
tion's own.  The  process  has  been  as  it  has  been;  and  it 
has  come  to  recognize  the  worth  of  conduct  which  we 
call  moral,  and  from  its  experience  testifies  to  the  worth 
of  morality.  From  the  process  we  may  see  what  morality 
has  done  for  life.  Morality  may  be  absolute  or  relati vis- 
tic  in  itself,  but  from  this  point  of  view  it  exists  to  serve 
life's  purpose.     In  so  far  as  the  process  tells  us  to  what 


40  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

use  morality  may  be  put,  does  it  tell  us  something  about 
morality,  does  it  define  virtue.  The  life  process  tells  us 
that  moral  principles  are  the  very  conditions  of  society's 
vitality ;  and  thus  is  a  fruitful  source  of  study  for  the 
moralist,  for  it  tells  him  more  about  morality  and  its 
uses  than  without  it  he  could  know. 

The  conditions  of  successful  life,  of  health  in  the  social 
organism,  are  largely  what  we  call  moral  principles.  The 
process  speaks  out  loudly  for  morals.  These  it  cannot  do 
without  at  the  present  stage  of  development.  It  can  do 
without  pleasure  if  needs  be,  though  pleasure  is  welcome 
in  so  far  as  it  helps  on  the  process.  Evolving  life  has  its 
own  game  to  play.  Biologically  and  sociologically  we 
have  seen  what  its  manifest  end  is.  It  uses  the  means  best 
suited  to  its  purpose.  These  are  of  course  various,  at  one 
time  non-moral,  at  another  immoral,  yet  at  a  late  stage 
most  frequently  moral.  It  values  one  of  these  as  higher  than 
another,  as  it  can  yield  the  process  better  service. 

Life  itself,  at  first  physical,  develops  also  the  mental 
and  the  moral.  If  life  is  to  be  most  complete,  physical, 
mental  and  moral  faculties  must  be  the  most  perfect  pos- 
sible. These  functionings  are  in  themselves  on  a  footing 
of  equality.  A  good  process  of  digestion,  a  good  piece  of 
mathematical  reasoning,  a  deed  of  justice  or  of  kindness, 
are  by  themselves  on  a  par.  For  the  life  process  they  can- 
not be  said  to  differ  qualitatively.  If  they  are  not  equal  in 
value,  their  value  must  be  considered  qualitatively,  and  as 
a  means  to  further  activities.  It  is  not  possible  from  the 
outside  to  make  any  comparison  between  these  kinds  of 
functioning.  The  process  exhibits  them  as  forms  of  its 
life  and  as  parts  of  its  end.  Yet  each  is  for  the  whole  a 
means.  When  we  consider  the  physical  as  the  most  impor- 
tant, it  is  at  a  time  when  the  whole  life  is  mainly  physical. 
Only  as  the  physical  is  kept  up  are  the  others  possible, 
and  they  would  be  the  first  to  be  given  up,  as  they  were 
the  last  to  appear  on  the  scene.  If  what  we  call  immoral 
conduct  should  at  any  time  conduce  to  more  complete 


The  Moral  Ideal  41 

functioning  of  the  whole  organism,  individual  or  social, 
then  it  would  become  the  valuable.  If  the  mental  were  a 
serious  drawback  in  life's  struggle  for  preservation  and 
increase,  it  would  tend  to  be  gotten  rid  of.  Mental  and 
moral,  as  well  as  physical  functioning,  have  been  useful  in 
the  process,  all  these  sorts  of  life  being  in  a  way  means  to 
each  of  the  others. 

Time  was  when  lower  mentality  than  that  which  at 
present  exists  sufficed  for  the  purpose  which  the  process 
had  immediately  in  view.  In  the  past,  at  a  lower  stage  of 
society,  the  same  factors  were  not  the  essential  conditions 
of  existence  as  now.  Morality  did  not  play  so  large  a 
part.  Injustice,  cruelty  and  ruthless  self-assertion  were 
predominant  characteristics.  These  were  in  fact  conditions 
of  existence.  Life  had  to  be  increased  and  preserved,  no 
matter  what  the  means.  As  the  process  went  on,  how- 
ever, the  main  features  of  our  moral  law  became  more  and 
more  essential  to  the  growth  of  this  life,  till  now  it  is  im- 
possible to  think  of  society  without  them. 

Just  here  we  may  notice  Mr.  Huxley's  views  which  have 
been  expounded  in  the  last  chapter.  He  found  as  we  saw 
an  essential  antagonism  between  the  cosmic  process  and 
the  moral  order.  He  views  the  process  as  a  whole,  and 
there  finds  principles  at  work  which  are  simply  non-moral 
and  immoral.  The  ethical  process  must  combat  the  cos- 
mic process.  Mr.  Huxley  fails  to  do  justice  to  the  moral, 
found  in  the  later  stage  of  the  process,  to  the  race  in  its 
social  human  stage.  He  finds  that  the  whole  process  is 
working  out  its  own  end  in  its  own  way,  and  because  this 
is  not  the  embodiment  all  the  while  of  a  moral  ideal,  he 
condemns  the  process.  This  view  must  be  combined  with 
that  of  the  other  evolutionary  ethicists.  The  process  is 
for  itself,  and  has  its  own  game  to  play.  The  category  of 
morality-  simply  does  not  apply  to  the  process  as  such.  It 
has  a  category  of  its  own.  Yet  incidentally  we  may  look 
at  its  morality,  or  its  opposite  of  moralit}';  and  he  who 


42  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

wishes  to  view  it  either  way  may  find  much  ground  for 
his  arguments.  We  find  the  truth  of  Huxley's  contention 
when  we  look  at  a  part  of  the  means  the  process  has  all 
along  used,  and  especially  in  what  we  know  as  the  lower 
forms  of  life.  We  see  the  truth  of  Stephen's  contention, 
when  we  consider  that  on  the  whole  what  we  call  moral 
principles  are  the  conditions  of  sociality  as  such.  Each  errs 
by  taking  a  partial  view  in  order  to  force  a  theory  that  is 
blind  to  a  part  of  the  facts.  The  whole  process  does  not 
exhibit  morality  as  such,  for  that  is  not  its  method,  nor 
its  aim,  so  far  as  we  can  learn.  Nor  does  the  process  as 
such  exhibit  the  opposite  of  morality,  for  this  is  neither  its 
method,  nor  its  aim.  Its  aim  is  simpl}'  something  else; 
and  its  methods  moral,  non-moral  and  immoral.  A  priori, 
there  is  no  reason  to  call  one  better  than  the  other.  The 
one  that  helps  the  process  most  is  best;  and  Stephen  has 
taught  us  our  lesson  too  well  not  to  recognize  that,  at 
present,  the  process  recognizes  the  moral  as  best,  as  a 
matter  of  fact. 

Conditions  may  change.  The  non-moral  and  the  im- 
moral may  again  play  a  larger  part  than  the  moral,  as 
they  did  long  aons  ago.  Morality  is  at  the  mercy  of  the 
process;  and,  if  the  greater  life  demands  it,  morality  must 
take  up  a  subordinate  position,  or  maj'hap  be  eliminated 
altogether.  Yet  in  this  study  we  are  not  called  upon  to 
consider  life  except  in  a  period  of  evolution.  It  is  not  in 
order  to  discuss  here  whether  the  whole  process  is  a  con- 
tinuous evolution,  or  a  process  having  recurrent  periods 
of  evolution  and  dissolution.  We  are  merely  viewing  the 
evolution  of  life,  and  while  we  may  conceive  of  the  condi- 
tions of  life  as  radically  changing,  yet  we  are  not  called 
upon  to  view  the  life  process  in  any  light  but  as  a  contin- 
uation of  what  has  been.  In  this  process,  as  we  have  seen, 
life  grows.  So  long  as  the  conditions  of  life  do  not  radi- 
cally change,  we  must  conceive  of  there  being  the  same 
end  or  meaning  of  the  process.  The  means  to  this  end 
may  change.     Morality  may  be  used   more  or  less.     The 


The  Moral  Ideal  43 

process  maybe  depended  on  to  use  the  best  means  at  hand 
suited  to  its  purpose. 

Yet  if  the  process  progresses  in  the  manner  in  which  it 
has  started,  it  would  seem  that  morality  stands  a  better 
chance  for  preservation  and  growth,  even  than  it  has  had. 
Morality  has  slowly  but  surely  developed  in  the  process, 
has  become  of  more  and  more  use  to  the  process.  Even 
within  historic  times  there  has  been  immense  development 
in  morality  in  fineness  and  extent,  and  the  decline  of  its 
opposite.  Thus  we  are  warranted  in  saying  that  it  will 
probably  grow  more  and  more.  As  mental  and  moral  life 
have  for  a  long  time  been  growing,  it  is  probable  they  will 
so  continue  to  grow.  Physical  man,  though  not  perfect, 
is  comparatively  so  when  we  consider  his  mental  and 
moral  development.  Yet  these  latter  are  progressing  at  a 
more  rapid  rate  than  the  physical ;  and  it  is  probable  that 
life  will,  as  in  the  past,  tend  more  and  more  to  develop 
along  mental  and  moral  lines. 

This,  however,  is  warranted  only  by  matter  of  fact. 
There  is  no  reason  inherent  in  the  process  why  just  this 
turn  of  the  development  should  take  place.  No  warrant, 
thatis  in  the  process  viewed  as  anevolutionof  life  process, 
whatever  may  be  its  ultimate  metaphysical  meaning  or 
final  purpose.  Different  conditions  would  produce  differ- 
ent phases  of  life;  and  radically  different  conditions  might 
bring  partial  or  total  defeat  to  the  life's  struggle.  If  the 
process  continues,  however,  as  it  has  gone  on,  and  is  now 
going  on,  we  may  hopefully  look  forward  to  greater  men- 
tal and  moral  development. 

It  is  quite  beyond  the  scope  of  this  essay  to  search  for 
the  principle  which  exhibits  itself  in  the  evolution  of  life  in 
just  the  form  it  has  taken.  Natural  selection  and  direct 
adaptation  to  environment  may  or  may  not  be  sufficient 
for  an  explanation.  Evolution  of  life,  however,  has  noth- 
ing for  us  but  the  fact  that  the  process  has  been  as  it  has 
been.  Morals  have  arisen  to  great  prominence,  but  if  we 
raise  the  question,  why  ?   we  have  only  the  answer  that 


44?  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

the  process  saw  fit  to  use  them  for  its  purpose.  The  evo- 
lutionist end,  biologically  and  sociologically,  is  its  own, 
is  greater  totality  of  life,  while  morality  is  for  it  one  of  its 
means,  though  indeed  the  most  important. 

§  2.  The  evolution  of  life  process  from  the  point  of  view 
of  morality. 

We  have  seen  in  what  light  morality  appeared  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  evolution  of  life  process.  We  must 
now  take  our  stand  on  morality,  and  see  what  meaning 
the  process  has  for  it.  There  the  criterion  was  success 
in  helping  on  the  process.  The  process  was  primary,  was 
all  important.  All  else  was  thought  of  in  the  light  of 
means,  and  was  good,  bad  or  indifferent,  according  to  its 
usefulness.  Here  the  point  of  view  is  changed.  Morality 
is  here  primary,  fundamental,  and  all  important.  In  its 
own  sphere  it  is  the  sole  arbiter  of  the  worth  of  conduct. 
It  now  sits  as  judge  of  the  world  process.  Morality  must 
here  be  considered  in  itself.  From  its  own  standpoint  it 
is  absolute,  just  as  the  life  process  is  absolute  from  its  own 
point  of  view.  All  else  must  here  be  judged  from  the  point  of 
view  of  morality.  In  so  far  as  any  thing  is  moral,  it  is  here  a 
good  ;  bad,  in  so  far  as  immoral ;  and  indifferent,  so  far  as 
non-moral.  Moral  ideas,  so  far  as  this  consideration  goes, 
are  self  based.  The  question  of  the  worth  of  morality  is 
here  out  of  place.  This  question  does  not  arise  and  cannot 
legitimately  arise  purely  as  a  question  of  morals.  Morality 
is  absolutely  the  one  good,  from  its  own  point  of  view. 
The  question  of  its  happiness  producing  or  of  its  life-pre- 
serving qualities  is  irrelevant.  Moral  Hfe,  moral  conduct, 
and  moral  ideas,  are  for  themselves.  Their  end  is  their 
existence. 

In  so  far  as  the  life  process  exhibits  morality,  is  it  to  be 
called  good.  We  must  inquire  in  how  far  this  process  ex- 
hibits such  morality.  We  have  seen  that  the  end  of  the 
Hfe  process  is  not  coincident  with  morality.  It  does  not 
exist  for  morality's  sake.     From  the  moral  point  of  view 


The  Moral  Ideal  45 

the  earlier  stages  of  the  life  process  are  ruthless  and  cruel. 
Wholesale  slaughter  is  one  of  the  great  means  toward  the 
end  of  the  process.  This  is  abhorrent  to  the  ethical  nature. 
Suffering  and  pain  mark  life's  progress  at  every  stage. 
The  ethical  is  not  only  ignored,  but  deeds  are  perpetrated 
that  are  the  very  reverse  of  moral.  Deceit,  tyranny  and 
cruelt\^  are  successful  qualities  in  the  early  life  struggle. 
In  so  far  as  this  mass  of  deeds,  the  opposite  of  moral,  is 
carried  on  in  the  process,  so  far  must  the  process  be  pro- 
nounced immoral.  It  is  needless  to  recount  here  any 
further  the  immoral  conduct  that  has  led  to  life's  preserva- 
tion. Nor  need  we  but  glance  at  the  enormous  amount  of 
conduct,  the  opposite  of  moral,  that  has  been  in  the  pro- 
cess, but  has  not  helped  on  its  end.  Even  the  unsuccessful, 
unmoral  variations  that  have  been  in  the  process  might 
well  condemn  it  from  the  moral  point  of  view.  But  it  is 
not  only  in  the  early  stages  that  morality  passes  its  sen- 
tence of  condemnation.  In  all  stages  of  the  process,  wher- 
ever life  is  advanced  by  cruelty  and  cunning,  by  the 
infliction  of  pain  and  suffering,  by  the  harshness  of  conduct 
guided  not  by  moral  standards,  there  must  morality  place 
the  stamp  of  its  disapproval.  All  conduct  that  has  been 
is  a  part  of  the  life  process.  Part  has  been  successful  or 
directed  towards  the  end  of  more  life,  and  part  has  been 
unsuccessful,  has  tended  to  the  decrease  of  life.  But  in 
both  these  series,  in  life's  process,  wherever  in  the  past  or 
present  is  found  evil  and  cunning,  wherever  cruelty  stalks 
with  ruthless  step,  whatever  is  or  has  been  immoral,  cruel, 
unjust,  malevolent — these  parts  of  the  process  stand  con- 
victed from  a  moral  standpoint. 

This  was  anticipated  in  our  discussion  in  the  previous 
section.  We  saw  that  life's  process  had  been  helped  on  by 
immoral  and  non-moral  conduct,  as  well  as  by  that  which 
was  moral.  For  its  use  of  immoral  means  the  process  is 
worse  than  non-existent,  from  the  moral  point  of  view. 
The  vast  non-moral  set  of  means  is  simply  indifferent  to 
the  moral  judiciary.     If  the  account  stopped   here,  the 


46  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

world  process  or  life  process  might  well  be  called  bad.  But 
our  past  considerations  have  shown  us  another  phase  of 
the  process.  Not  only  have  the  non-moral  and  the  im- 
moral been  used  in  life's  evolution,  but  also  the  moral. 
From  the  first  the  individual  has  been  developing  charac- 
teristics that  soon  pass  into  virtues.  Altruism  soon 
appears.  Justice  beginsits  rule.  While  in  the  strictest  sense 
nothingcan  be  called  moral  until  we  come  to  man's  willed 
conduct,  yet  as  we  have  freely  labelled  theconduct  just  con- 
sidered, as  immoral,  from  thefact  that  if  performed  by  any 
being  capable  of  moral  distinctions  it  would  be  called  im- 
moral, so  this  conduct  we  must  designate  as  moral,  which 
if  performed  by  a  moral  agent  would  receive  the  name. 
Long  before  we  get  to  human  life,  courage,  kindness,  care 
for  offspring,  and  benevolence  abound.  Morality  in  so  far 
commends  the  process.  Wherever  unsuccessful  variations 
have  been  of  the  moral  sort,  and  we  must  think  of  a  large 
number  as  being  so  at  first,  there  morality  sets  its  seal  of 
approval.  It  commends  the  process  that  produced  them, 
and  condemns  that  process  when  it  causes  their  elimina- 
tion. But  as  the  life  process  went  on,  it  used  morality 
more  and  more  to  accomplish  its  ends.  So  much  so,  indeed, 
that  the  fundamental  conditions  of  the  existence  of  society 
are  its  moral  principles.  Here  the  process  is  at  its  best 
from  morality's  standpoint,  for  it  is  the  means  of  morali- 
ty's growth. 

It  is  acknowledged  here  to  be  useless  to  endeavor  to 
label  the  process  either  good  or  bad  morall3^  In  so  far 
as  it  has  been  immoral,  it  is  bad.  In  so  far  as  it  has  pro- 
duced morality,  is  it  good.  Where  shall  a  measure  be  found 
to  reckon  up  its  moralities  and  its  evils?  And  if  reckoned 
up  how  measure  the  one  with  the  other,  the  absolutely 
good,  and  the  absolutely  bad?  The  process  has  fought 
moralit}',  has  been  indifferent  to  it,  and  has  helped  it  on. 
Morality  in  its  turn  has  had  to  fight  the  process,  has  ig- 
nored it,  has  welcomed  it  as  its  accessory.  W^e  have  the 
different  ends  or  points  of  view  clearly  before  us.     Life  is 


The  Moral  Ideal  47 

the  watchword  of  the  one,  morality  that   of  the  other. 
What  is  relatively  good  to  each  we  have  seen. 

Morality  is  of  course  a  part  of  the  whole  life  process. 
Huxley,  as  we  have  seen,  contends  that  the  ethical  process 
is  essentially  the  foe  of  the  cosmic  process.  This  is  not 
answered  as  some  have  tried  to  answer  it  by  the  assertion 
that  morality  is  a  part  of  the  cosmic  or  life  process.  The 
essence  or  spirit  of  the  part  may  be  in  antagonism  to  the 
essence  or  spirit  of  the  whole.  The  process  is,  as  we  have 
repeated,  in  part  the  opposite  of  moral,  as  well  as  in  part 
moral. 

Now  as  there  is  much  in  the  process  that  is  opposed  to 
moralit}^  is  there  anything  in  morality  that  is  not  of 
service  in  the  process  ?  Can  all  morality  be  considered  in 
the  light  of  helping  on  life's  process  ?  As  morality  is 
absolute  for  itself,  just  as  the  life  process  is  for  itself,  and 
as  the  latter  has  phases  the  opposite  of  moral,  so  may  we 
a  priori  expect  morality  to  have  phases  the  opposite  of  life 
preserving.  This  we  shall  see  to  be  borne  out  bv  the  facts. 
In  the  first  place  for  immoral  useful  activity  and  conduct, 
the  ethical  process  would  substitute  moral  activity  and 
conduct  which  would  of  course  not  be  useful,  but  at  this 
point,  life-destroying.  It  tends  to  replace  all  immoral 
conduct  by  moral  conduct.  In  doing  this  it  goes  beyond, 
in  its  striving  to  fulfill  itself,  what  is  of  use  to  the  life  pro- 
cess. To  see  this  in  the  social  human  stage  we  have  only 
to  mention  what  our  morality  demands  in  the  case  of  the 
extremely  weak,  the  insane,  the  physically  and  mentally 
incapable.  The  life  process,  ever  seeking  more  life,  bids  its 
true  votaries  leave  ^these  to  take  care  of  themselves,  and 
bids  those  who  would  care  for  them,  and  help  eke  out 
their  miserable  existence,  to  apply  their  energies  to  the 
propagation  and  nourishment  of  those  in  whom  life  phy- 
sically and  mentally  is  strong,  and  who  will  thus  be  able 
to  give  the  world  greater  mental  and  physical  life  in  self 
and  offspring.  From  the  life  process  point  of  view  the 
demands  of  our  ethical   nature  in  the  treatment  of  such 


48  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

cases  are  both  absurd  and  detrimental.  To  care  for  these 
is  right  morally,  but  wrong  biologically  and  sociologically. 
This  conduct  may  be  benevolence  and  justice  gone  wrong, 
for  the  uses  of  the  cosmic  process,  but  not  so  from  moral- 
ity's outlook.  It  is  intelligent  not  blmd.  The  existence  of 
this  sort,  the  perpetuation  of  this  incapable  life  in  off- 
spring, in  so  far  defeats  the  aim  of  the  process,  for  it  in  so 
far  prevents  their  place  being  taken  by  a  physically  and 
mentally  vigorous  life.  True,  the  cosmic  process  may  be  the 
stronger,  and  in  the  end  force  the  elimination  of  these 
weaklings ;  but  in  so  far  as  it  uses  its  energies  in  this  way 
is  it  a  loss  to  the  process  as  a  whole.  Here,  then,  ethical 
process  and  cosmic  process  are  at  war. 

In  the  struggle  for  life  as  it  still  is  even  at  this  late  stage, 
while,  in  the  main,  success  both  for  the  race  and  for  the 
individual  depends  on  the  living  of  moral  principles,  yet 
neither  must  be  too  good  if  they  would  succeed.  The 
man  whose  moral  nature  is  most  highly  developed  who 
may  be  a  moral  reformer,  may  be  best  from  an  ethical 
standpoint,  but  from  the  life  standpoint,  he  will  not  be  as 
successful  as  the  man  who  is  moderately  moral  and  who 
can  at  the  appropriate  time  call  in  mere  prudence  in  the 
place  of  high  souled  morality.  So,  too,  the  society  that 
has  within  itself  an  extremely  highly  developed  moral 
sense  is  apt  in  its  struggle  with  other  societies  to  be  seri- 
ously handicapped.  Moderate  morality  is  what  the  life 
process  uses  as  its  means.  If  the  ethical  nature  of  either 
the  individual  or  the  race  seeks  to  go  beyond  this,  it  must 
combat  the  process,  its  life  is  a  constant  struggle.  Moral 
life  is  not  satisfied  with  moderate  morality.  Ever  before 
ethical  man  rise  higher  ethical  ideals.  Ever  is  he  striving 
to  reach  these  ideals.  As  he  approaches  them  ever  higher 
do  they  rise,  and  he  in  turn  eagerly  follows  on.  These 
ideals  are  beyond  the  real,  the  life  process  and  actual 
moral  attainment.  Man's  ethical  nature  is  ever  in  the 
stage  between  the  actual  and  the  ideal,  and  hence  his 
moral  nature  ever  makes  demands  on  him  that  the  life 


The  Moral  Ideal  49 

process  does  not  justify.  This  is  the  never  ceasing  struggle 
between  the  ethical  process  and  cosmic  process. 

To  a  great  extent  the  two  processes  agree.  Each  is  a 
great  means  to  the  other.  The  cosmic  process  reckons  the 
ethical  process  as  its  chief  means,  and  as  an  important 
part  of  itself.  The  ethical  process  recognizes  that  the  life 
process  is  to  a  great  extent  moral,  and  in  so  far  commends 
it.  But  the  moral  goes  beyond  the  real,  and  hence  is  in 
continual  warfare  with  it.  It  would  seem  as  though  the 
cosmic  process  were  more  and  more  making  use  of  the 
moral,  and  in  so  far  the  two  processes  are  agreeing  more 
and  more.  We  can  see  a  growing  coalescence  between  the 
two.  Spencerthinksof  a  time  when  both  shall  agree.  Yet 
as  we  look  at  the  nature  of  moral  life,  we  must  doubt  that 
ever  a  perfect  agreement  will  arise.  It  is  as  we  have  said 
the  nature  of  the  ethical  to  set  up  ideals,  and  to  strive  for 
these ;  and,  so  long  as  it  does,  so  it  will  not  agree  with  the 
life  process.  When  it  ceases  to  be  so,  when  the  life  process 
has  caught  up  with  the  moral,  when  the  ethical  nature  of 
man  has  ceased  to  set  up  its  ideals,  then  will  it  cease  as 
such  to  be  moral.  Its  very  life  is  a  contending  for  ideals 
which  the  life  process  does  not  exhibit.  True  the  life  pro- 
cess has  attained  much  in  the  way  of  morals.  In  so  far 
morality  commends  it.  So  long,  however,  as  morality  has 
its  ideals  for  which  it  struggles,  so  long  w^illit  in  part  con- 
demn the  life  process,  and  combat  it.  Nor  must  we  forget 
that  there  is  alwaj'S  a  possibility  of  the  parting  of  the 
w^ays. 

In  conclusion,  if  it  be  objected  that  this  method  of  con- 
trasting the  moral  with  the  cosmic  process  is  a  begging  of 
the  question  as  to  the  meaning  of  morality,  it  may  be  said 
that  it  certainly  is  a  huge  assumption  to  limit  the  meaning 
of  morality  to  what  is  of  use  in  the  struggle.  It  has  been 
sought  here  to  make  only  that  distinction  in  scientific 
principle  which  the  facts  of  experience  call  for. 


50  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

§  3.  Morality  and  the  evolution  of  life  process  from 
the  point  of  view  of  happiness. 

Following  out  the  line  of  argument  in  the  preceding  sec- 
tion of  this  chapter,  a  few  remarks  as  to  the  moral  process 
and  the  cosmic  process  and  their  relation  to  the  hedonic 
ideal  may  be  made.  This  maj'  be  done  more  freely  on 
account  of  the  close  historical  connection  between  hedon- 
ism and  evolutionism  as  shown  above,  because  morals 
are  judged  by  many  on  account  of  their  productiveness  of 
agreeable  feeling,  and  also  because  the  endless  quarrel 
between  optimist  and  pessimist  is  here  involved. 

In  this  section  we  may  use  the  terms  pleasure  and  hap- 
piness interchangeably,  as  denoting  what  Spencer  calls 
agreeable  feeling.  And,  after  all,  when  any  distinction  is 
made  between  them,  it  is  because  of  some  real  difference 
between  the  objective  conditions  of  the  feeling,  as  for 
instance,  higher  activities  as  opposed  to  lower,  or  a  har- 
monious organization  of  activities  instead  of  a  lawless 
impulsive  exhibition  of  the  same.  Pleasure  and  happiness, 
qua  hedonistic,  that  is,  regarded  as  states  of  feeling  are  of 
the  same  sort,  and  have  merely  a  quantitative  evaluation 
of  difference. 

Logically,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  in  reality,  in  a  category 
different  from  those  discussed  in  the  preceding  sections, 
comes  the  hedonistic  standard.  As  the  moral  process  and 
the  life  process  w^ere  absolute  in  their  own  domains,  so 
happiness  in  its  sphere.  From  this  point  of  view,  on  this 
method  of  evaluation,  pleasure  is  the  good,  pain  the  bad. 
Anythingthat  conduces  to  pleasure  is  good,  anythingthat 
hinders  the  obtaining  of  pleasure  and  abets  pain,  is  bad. 

Accordingly,  from  this  point  of  view,  morality  is  good 
or  bad  according  as  it  does  or  does  not  bring  a  surplus  of 
agreeable  feeling.  So,  the  life  process,  greater  totality  of 
life  in  length  and  breadth,  is  good  or  bad  according  as 
there  is  or  is  not  in  it  a  surplusage  of  pleasure  over  pain. 
In  ordinary  judgments  this   view  is  probably  taken   more 


The  Moral  Ideal  51 

than  any  other.  Life  is  most  frequently  praised  or  con- 
demned on  this  basis.  And  even  ethical  scientists  in  the 
interests  of  the  hedonistic  theory,  starting  as  Spencer  does 
with  the  assumption  that  agreeable  feeling  is  the  only  good, 
and  the  opposite  the  only  evil,  regard  it  as  so  much  the 
worse  for  the  facts  of  the  moral  life,  if  they  do  not  har- 
monize with  their  theorv. 

Yet  as  the  other  points  of  view  were  in  a  way  methodo- 
logical, so  this  may  be  as  justifiably  so  regarded.  The  life 
process  has  its  methods,  purpose,  ideals  and  criterion  of 
evaluation.  The  moral  process  has  its  ideals  and  its  meth- 
ods, and  its  own  unique  method  of  evaluation.  And 
though  the  connection  is,  of  course,  very  intimate  between 
morality  and  the  production  of  happiness,  and  also  be- 
tween the  health  of  the  social  organism  and  its  height  of 
agreeable  feeling  tone,  yet  a  hedonistic  evaluation  has  its 
ideals,  and  its  criterion,  and  as  vigorously  applies  them  as 
the  other  processes  do  theirs. 

The  first  question  then  becomes,  how  does  the  life  pro- 
cess appear  from  the  hedonistic  standpoint  ?  Of  course  it 
would  be  impossible,  and  the  attempt  rather  presumptu- 
ous, to  give  a  full  discussion  hereof  the  claims  of  optimism 
and  pessimism.  A  few  points  may  be  brought  out,  how- 
ever, which  are  especially  relevant  to  our  purpose. 

We  have  seen  that  a  priori  the  life  process  warrants 
neither  interpretation.  On  Spencer's  hypothesis  that  life 
was  evolved  by  each  creature  performing  the  conduct  most 
pleasurable  under  the  given  circumstances,  and  when  this 
conserved  life,  well ;  and,  when  not,  ill ;  even  on  this  sup- 
position we  found  that  a  theory  of  pessimism  might  be 
concluded  from  resultant  facts,  though  indeed  life  would 
not  be  the  most  painful  possible.  But  this  hypothesis  we 
found  was  not  justifiable,  and,  hence,  an  a  priori  solution 
of  the  problem  impracticable. 

The  life  process  as  a  matter  of  fact  has  produced  innu- 
merable and  incalculable  pains,  and  has  indeed  abounded 
in  pleasure.    It  seems  to  favor  pleasure  indeed,  in  that  a 


52  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

moderate  amount  of  it  is  better  for  vitality  than  is  pain. 
Or  at  least  pleasure  is  in  some  measure  the  index  of  growth, 
pain,  of  destruction.  In  the  earlier  stages  of  sentient  life, 
pleasures  and  pains  count  for  but  little.  Affective  con- 
sciousness has  grown  more  and  more  intense,  and  still 
grows,  as  we  ascend  to  man,  to  civilized  man,  and  to  man 
still  more  highly  civilized.  Pleasureand  pain  are  both  more 
intensive,  and  greater  in  extension,  as  the  life  process  goes 
on,  as  activities  become  more  subtle  and  complex,  and  as 
the  number  of  sentient  beings  increases.  It  may  be  called 
a  mark  of  growing  life,  of  greater  totality  of  life  in  length 
and  breadth  in  each  and  all,  that  affective  consciousness, 
painful  and  pleasurable,  is  on  the  increase. 

The  life  process  as  it  is  studied  by  the  evolutionist  has 
certainl}^  added  much  evidence  for  the  use  of  both  optimist 
and  the  pessimist,  but  seems  to  have  contributed  little  to- 
wards a  final  settlement.  A  vital  connection  is  in  part 
established  between  the  life-giving  and  the  pleasurable. 
The  process  abounds  in  pleasurable  activities,  and  a  view 
of  these  but  confirms  the  optimist  in  his  view  of  life  at 
present  and  during  historic  times.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
unutterable  cruelty  and  pain,  attending  advancing  life, 
the  desolation  and  woe  that  are  everywhere  the  attend- 
ants of  progress,  the  struggle  for  life  and  the  survival  of 
those  who  are  cunning  and  powerful  enough  to  survive, 
these  phases  of  the  process  the  more  confirm  the  pessimist 
in  his  interpretation  of  life  and  its  meaning. 

While  it  is  true  that  the  hedonistic  criterion  becomes  of 
greater  importance  as  the  life  process  goes  on,  yet  it  can 
hardly  be  said  that  the  process  is  at  one  with  the  hedon- 
istic ideal.  The  life  process  cares  not  for  pleasure-pain 
distinctions.  It  is  as  such  neither  productive  of  pleasure 
nor  of  pain.  Its  end  and  means  is  simply  different  from 
the  end  and  means  which  the  optimist  hedonistic  would 
see  in  it.  In  so  far  as  the  process  produces  pain,  in  so  far 
as  its  very  nature  causes  pain  directly'  in  the  attainment 
of  its  end,  or  indirecth'  as  it  has  unsuccessful  painful  vari- 


The  Moral  Ideal  53 

ations,  in  so  far  must  it  be  condemned  from  the  hedonistic 
standpoint.  In  so  far  as  the  life  process  produces  agreea- 
ble feeling,  in  so  far  does  the  hedonist  commend  the  life 
process. 

The  question  next  arises  as  to  the  worth  of  morality 
from  the  happiness  point  of  view.  Ultimate  ethical  theory 
has  waged  its  battles  about  this  point  with  so  much  zeal 
and  with  such  a  conflict  of  opinions  concerning  the  issue, 
that  it  would  be  going  too  far  in  this  essay  to  attempt  a 
complete  estimate  of  the  relation  between  happiness  and 
morals.  Yet  the  question  is  a  legitimate  one,  in  this  line 
of  argument  and  a  few  suggestions  may  be  made. 

The  question  may  first  be  asked  in  how  far  does  moral- 
ity promote  agreeable  feeling  and  not  its  contrary.  Mor- 
ality and  the  moral  process  we  have  come  to  look  at  as 
self-existent,  and  as  fundamental  in  human  nature  as  affec- 
tive consciousness,  or  the  desire  for  it.  On  a  priori  grounds 
then  we  are  not  led  to  reduce  the  one  to  the  other.  That 
is  to  say,  we  cannot  observe  as  a  matter  of  moral  intui- 
tion, Spencer's  naive  and  dogmatic  statement  to  the 
contrary,  that  conduct  is  moral  or  the  reverse  according 
as  it  does  or  does  not  promote  a  surplusage  of  agreeable 
feeling. 

Of  course  all  would  agree  that  happiness  both  for  the 
individual  and  society  depends  very  largely  upon  moral 
conduct.  For  the  individual  moral  conduct  is  a  great 
means  towards  this  achievement  of  a  happy  life  undisturbed 
by  pains.  This  the  Epicurean  saw.  Of  course  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  agreeable  feeling  is  produced  likewise  by  con- 
duct non-moral  and  even  by  conduct  immoral.  It  has 
never  been  shown  either  in  theory- or  in  livingthat  greater 
amount  of  agreeable  feeling  for  the  individual  could  not 
be  produced  by  a  judicious  combination  of  conduct  not 
moral  with  the  great  mass  of  moral  conduct.  In  fact  if 
it  is  agreeable  feeling  that  men  are  seeking,  it  is  quite  prob- 
able that  they  must  not  use  the  moral  exclusively.  Men  do 
not  do  so  with  such  an  ideal,  and  to  assume  that  they  are 


54  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

mistaken  in  their  choice  of  means  is  not  a  real  criticism  of 
their  position.  On  the  contrary  to  be  truly  moral,  and 
not  in  any  way  immoral,  to  live  the  real  essence  of  virtue, 
to  struggle  after  ideals  that  man  has  not  yet  attained, 
this  high  standard  of  living  which  morality  pronounces 
most  praiseworty,  must  bring  pain,  must  cut  off  those 
practising  it  from  a  great  amount  of  pleasure,  must  be  in 
so  far  condemned  on  hedonistic  ground.  Stephen  the  hedon- 
ist says,  that  the  attempt  to  make  happiness  and  virtue 
coincide  is  hopeless,  and  that  to  be  happy  one  should  be 
good,  but  not  too  good.  There  is  indeed  pain  in  such  a 
struggle.  To  relegate  such  conduct  to  fanatics  and  mar- 
tyrs is  a  mistake.  It  is  what  every  highly  moral  man 
endures  purely  for  the  sake  of  morality,  and  not  for  agree- 
able feeling,  nor  is  the  latter  its  product  as  over  against 
a  greater  product  which  might  have  been  attained  in  some 
other  way.  This  conduct  is  a  fact  of  every  day  life,  and 
its  object  is  to  work  out  one's  moral  nature. 

Though  there  is  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  evolu- 
tionary writers  to  seek  a  harmony  between  the  goal  of  the 
life  process  and  the  ideal  of  egoistic  hedonism,  notably  in 
Spencer,  yet  most  modern  hedonists  find  the  meaning  of 
the  moral  law  in  the  utilitarian  formula  or  its  equivalent. 
Much  can  be  claimed  for  this  standard  as  a  measure  for 
morals.  The  great  virtue  of  benevolence  finds  it  content 
largely  in  promoting  this  end.  If  the  members  of  a  social 
group  are  immoral,  the  happiness  of  the  community  will  be 
lessened.  Yet  it  is  not  easily  shown  that,  provided  certain 
virtues  are  in  the  main  lived  out  carefully,  a  greater 
amount  of  agreeable  feeling  in  all  might  not  be  attained 
by  such  a  prudential  combination  of  phases  of  conduct  as 
was  mentioned  in  the  preceding  paragraph. 

But  though  the  coincidence  between  moral  conduct  and 
the  individual's  happiness  is  great,  and  still  greater  be- 
tween moral  conduct  and  the  happiness  of  all,  yet  we  can- 
not say  that  herein  moral  conduct  finds  its  justification, 
that  it  exists  solely  as  a  means  to  this  end.     These  hedon- 


The  Moral  Ideal  55 

istic  standards  may  be  indices  of  moral  conduct,  not  its 
content.  It  is  of  the  greatest  worth  on  its  own  account, 
in  conduct  and  character. 

Moral  conduct  is  for  the  most  part  approved  of  from  the 
hedonistic  point  of  view,  though  in  a  measure  condemned 
when  too  strenuous  in  its  growth  and  exercise.  And  yet 
on  the  other  hand,  from  the  hedonistic  point  of  view,  we 
cannot  failto  commend  a  certain  measureof  conduct  which 
is  considered  by  the  moral  consciousness  as  not  moral, 
perhaps  as  immoral. 

Morality  is  for  happiness  a  good,  just  as  it  was  for  the 
life  process  a  good.  It  is  the  greatest  aid  to  both  happi- 
ness and  promotion  of  life  that  these  non-moral  processes 
know.  Yet  it  must  be  in  a  small  measure  an  evil,  for  it  is 
not  always  wholly  in  accord  with  these  standards. 

We  thus  see  that  in  their  factual  relations,  as  in  method 
logically,  there  is  a  divergence  between  the  three  standards 
up  to  which  conduct  may  be  measured. 

§  4-.   Evolution  and  the  Moral  Ideal. 

We  cannot  speak,  therefore,  of  a  coincidence  between  the 
moral  order  and  the  natural  order,  nor  interpret  either  as 
consisting  in  the  promotion  of  a  surplusage  of  agreeable 
feeling.  The  evolution  of  life  process  both  values  and  un- 
dervalues morals.  Morality  both  commends  and  wages 
war  upon  the  cosmic  process.  The  three  ends,  or  processes 
striving  to  achieve  those  ends,  are  thoroughly  disparate. 
Each  process  is  both  absolute  with  respect  to  itself  and 
relativistic  with  respect  to  the  others.  The  facts  of  each 
may  be  made  the  groundwork  of  a  science. 

Ethics,  the  science  of  morals,  will  not  as  a  true  science 
admit  of  explanation  from  the  principles  of  any  other 
science.  Its  last  word  will  not  consist  in  the  exploitation 
of  a  foreign  category. 

The  hedonistic  attempt  has  been  always  to  explain  the 
worth  of  life  and  moral  conduct  by  a  single  principle, 
agreeable  feeling.  In  so  far  the  attempt  is  to  be  commended, 


56  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

its  motive  being,  in  ethical  theory,  to  come  to  a  scientific 
unification  of  a  multitude  of  facts.  Without  attempting 
a  thorough  criticism  of  hedonism  as  an  ethical  theory,  we 
may  at  least  question  its  adequacy  upon  the  foregoing 
considerations. 

The  evolutionistic  explanation,  in  attempting  to  super- 
sede the  utilitarian,  seeks  a  thorough  going  fundamental 
principle,  which  will  be  at  once  the  recognition  of  the  reign 
of  law  and  of  cause  and  effect,  and  an  interpreter  of  good 
and  bad  conduct.  From  such  a  principle  the  good  and  bad 
may  even  be  deduced.  At  least  it  becomes  an  ideal  stand- 
ard of  measurement  and  explanation.  The  observable 
direction  of  the  life  process  becomes  the  moral  ideal,  and 
the  means  employed,  the  moral  laws  which  become  to  the 
individual  a  threatening  imperative. 

In  the  first  place  we  may  say  that  if  such  a  fundamental 
principle  could  be  found,  and  if  rules  of  conduct  werededu- 
ciblefrom  it,  such  rules  would  be  rules  of  the  cosmic  process 
rather  than  of  the  moral  order.  No  doubt  they  would  in 
large  measure  coincide,  but  the  great  lack  of  coincidence 
would  be  sufficient  to  condemn  them  for  purposes  of  ethi- 
cal explanation. 

We  may  agree  that  such  phrases  as  the  greatest  totality 
of  life  in  each  and  all,  and  the  health  of  the  social  organism, 
express  the  fundamental  observable  principle  or  evident 
goal  of  the  life  process.  When  however  we  have  as  deduc- 
tions from  such  principles  the  so  called  moral  laws,  we  find 
that  they  are  hardly  deduced  after  all,  but  cited  in  a  gen- 
eral way  and  fitted  in  to  their  place  and  office  as  in  great 
measure  promotive  of  the  end.  They  are  useful  of  course, 
but  it  is  not  their  meaning  to  be  essentially  such. 

We  do  not  find  a  patient  attempt  at  deduction  of  cosmic 
principles,  and  then  a  genuine  critical  comparison  with 
the  facts  of  moral  experience  to  test  agreement.  Scientific 
accuracy  and  explanation  certainly  demand  such  a  proce- 
dure. The  evolutionistic  method  in  its  enthusiasm  over 
its  discoveries  has  not  in  ethics  been  sufficientlv  careful  to 


The  Moral  Ideal  57 

test  its  conclusions  by  the  facts  of  experience ;  and  cer- 
tainly, if  conclusions  do  not  agree  with  these  facts,  we  can 
hardly  say,  so  much  the  worse  for  the  facts. 

Again,  the  principle  of  explanation  is  not  drawn  from 
the  facts  of  morals,  but  is  an  analogical  hypothesis  drawn 
from  biology,  and  in  a  measure  from  sociology.  The  at- 
tempt to  interpret  the  moral  ideal  by  means  of  a  biological 
and  sociological  principle  meets  in  fact  of  explanation  as 
great  difficulties  as  in  logical  method.  So  far  as  these 
evolutionary  writers  have  gone,  we  must  conclude  that 
the  moral  end  or  ideal  must  be  a  question  of  morals,  and 
its  place  cannot  be  taken  by  a  concept  borrowed  from  an- 
other science.  If  the  secret  of  the  worth  of  life  is  to  be 
described  as  a  greater  totality  of  life  in  each  and  all,  this 
must  come  as  a  revelation  from  the  facts  of  morals, 
and  not,  for  proof  at  least,  from  biological  and  sociologi- 
cal considerations.  That  such  a  formula  or  analogy  gives 
the  meaning  of  the  cosmic  process  is  not  sufficient  proof  of 
its  validity  for  morals. 

It  must  be  said,  however,  that  the  meaning  of  the  moral 
life  is  revealed  by  a  study  of  the  life-process  in  a  remark- 
able degree.  It  gives  anew  meaning  to  moral  laws  to  find 
that  they  are  of  such  vital  importance  to  the  life  process 
and  the  social  organism.  Any  theory  of  morals  not  tak- 
ing this  into  the  account  is  inadequate.  The  moral  order 
is  inextricably  interwoven  w^ith  the  cosmic  process,  even 
though  they  are  not  the  same.  A  greater  light  could  hard- 
ly be  thrown  upon  moral  principles  than  this  of  the 
evolutionist.  In  describing  the  virtues,  to  leave  out  their 
meaning  for  the  life  process  and  the  social  organism,  would 
be  to  leave  out  half  their  essence. 

Then,  too,  we  must  hold  with  Stephen  that  ethics  can  no 
longer  be  regarded  merely  as  science  of  individual  life.  It 
cannot  be  identified  with  social  science  or  sociology  but  it 
is  in  truth  a  social  science.  It  has  a  social  reference.  Its 
facts  are  facts  of  worth  for  the  individual  living  as  a  factor 
of  a  society.     Evolutionary  ethics  has  shown  the  futility 


58  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

of  an  attempt  to  arrive  at  the  nature  of  the  moral  ideal 
merely  by  an  analysis  of  human  nature,  irrespective  of  the 
complex  of  social  activities  which  occupy  the  members  of 
society. 

Again,  the  moral  order  must  be  viewed  as  a  part  of  the 
w^orld  order,  and  morals  must  be  subject  to  development. 
A  study  of  morals  from  the  evolutionistic  point  of  view 
reveals  the  fact  that  morals  cannot  be  fully  understood 
unless  followed  from  their  beginnings  up  through  the  vari- 
ous stages  of  their  development  to  their  present  compara- 
tively high  stage  of  growth.  It  is  not  necessary  to  resort 
to  a  foreign  analogy  as  an  instrument  for  the  study  of 
morals.  Agreeable  feeling  as  the  goal  of  moral  eifort,  and 
the  evolutionistic  criterion,  are  both  hasty  and  misleading. 
Each  however,  betrays  a  desire  for  scientific  unification, 
but  either  hypothesis  is  inadequate. 

A  study  of  morals  must,  in  the  first  place,  be  genetic. 
The  content  of  the  moral  ideal  can  only  be  revealed  when 
we  review  the  achievements  of  the  moral  principle  in  the 
race.  Aristotle's  thought  of  the  good  as  activity  in  accord- 
ance with  virtue,  can  only  be  fully  understood  in  the 
growth  of  the  virtues  as  the  moral  order  has  made  good 
its  place  in  the  real.  The  intensive  and  extensive  realiza- 
tion of  the  moral  ideal  may  by  patient  investigation  be 
appreciated  step  by  step,  until  there  dawns  a  genuine  in- 
sight into  the  nature  of  that  ideal.  In  this  study  constant 
reference  must  be  made  to  the  effect  upon  the  world  order, 
in  the  combat  of  the  moral  order  with  it,  and,  more  espe- 
cially, in  an  exact  estimate  of  the  assistance  which  the 
moral  order  renders  the  world  order. 

Secondly,  the  stud}'  of  morals  must  be  as  indicated  above 
a  study  of  the  social  individual.  Herein  the  individual 
finds  his  morality.  The  moral  life  is  revealed  in  its  fulness 
of  content  in  all  the  complex  relationships  of  man  to  man 
and  man  to  society.  And  this  not  so  much  in  a  subjective 
wav,  as  e.  g.,  to  find  out  the  source  of  altruism,  as  to  find 


The  Moral  Ideal  59 

the  content  of  these  activities  in  so  far  as  they  are  moral. 
In  this  connection  the  hedonistic  standard  must  be  taken 
into  the  account  and  morality  must  be  understood  in  part 
as  it  performs  the  office  of  promoter  of  the  general  happi- 
ness. Though  the  hedonistic  contention  cannot  be  admit- 
ted in  full,  as  explanatory  of  morals,  yet  a  full  description 
of  the  moral  ideal  without  reference  to  feeling  would  be 
misleading. 

Third,  a  study  of  morals  to  define  the  nature  of  the  moral 
ideal  must  in  a  measure  follow  out  the  old  line  of  an  anal- 
ysis of  human  nature  to  find  the  touchstone  of  worth. 
For  after  all  it  is  upon  individual  judgments  of  worth  that 
morals  rest.  The  whole  content  of  the  moral  law  must  be 
an  interpretation  of  what  individuals  reckon  as  being  of 
worth  in  the  conduct  of  men  and  activities  of  society. 

That  a  study  of  morals  will  be  satisfactorily  carried  on 
without  these  three  demands  being  satisfied,  seems  to  be 
out  of  the  question.  And  we  are  led  to  the  conclusion  that 
when  the  science  is  carried  on  in  this  manner,  we  shall  be 
the  less  able  to  accept  the  evolutionist  end  of  the  life  pro- 
cess as  brought  out  by  the  English  evolutionary  ethicists, 
as  a  genuine  description  of  the  end,  in  the  sense  of  moral 
ideal  which  is  being  realized  through  the  moral  order. 

In  conclusion  it  must  be  added  that  an  attempt  to  recon- 
cile the  disparate  ends  above  discussed  must  be  essentially 
a  metaphysical  one.  It  is  not  a  question  of  biology  and 
sociology,  nor  yet  one  of  ethics,  as  to  the  ultimate  coinci- 
dence of  the  natural  order  and  moral  order.  Metaphysi- 
cally it  may  be  shown  that  the  whole  world  process 
viewed  as  an  evolution,  is  a  unit,  and  that  the  underlying 
principle  of  that  evolution  is  one  that  we  may  call  moral. 

Or  again  even  though  such  a  metaphysical  attempt 
should  not  be  successful,  it  may  be  the  office  of  the  practi- 
cal reason  to  lead  us  to  a  faith  that  such  a  unification  must 
be  in  the  deepest  sense  a  reality.  Spencer  and  Stephen  seem 
to  be  dominated  by  such  a  conviction,  though  they  might 
not  welcome  the  charge. 


60  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

An  ethical  scientist  may  handover  the  ultimate  question 
to  the  philosopher  for  solution  by  the  pure  reason  or  the 
practical  reason  ;  but  he  must  as  scientist  be  content  with 
that  same  humble  attitude  which  characterizes  other  gen- 
uine scientists,  of  describing  and  explaining  his  facts  upon 
the  principles  which  those  facts  reveal  to  the  understanding. 


PART  II 


THE  CONSCIENCE 


In  the  history  of  British  ethical  speculation  the  prob- 
lem of  the  origin  and  validity  of  the  Conscience,  or  the 
Consciousness  of  Moral  Obligation,  has  had  a  prominence 
second  to  none.  And  when  the  doctrine  of  evolutionism 
began  to  influence  all  scientific  and  philosophic  thinking, 
including  ethical  speculation,  its  possibility  of  application 
to  the  ever  recurring  problem  of  the  conscience  became 
evident. 

In  Darwin's  "  Descent  of  Man  "  we  find  the  first  classic 
statement  of  the  view  that  the  moral  sense  is  a  direct 
outgrowth  along  discernible  lines  from  the  non-moral 
consciousness.  This  view  is  supported  by  Herbert  Spencer 
and  by  Leslie  Stephen,  though  all  three  have  different 
theories  of  the  method  of  the  development.  It  is  proposed 
in  this  part  to  give  a  statement  and  review  of  the  theories 
of  the  origin  of  the  sense  of  moral  obligation  according  to 
these  leaders  in  evolutional  thinking,  together  with  some 
conclusions  as  to  the  development  of  the  moral  conscious- 
ness. 


CHAPTER  V 
darwin's  theory  of  the  origin  of  conscience 

In  Chapter  IV  of  the  Descent  of  Man,  Darwin  endeavors 
to  relate  the  natural  history  of  the  origin  of  the  sense  of 
oughtness.  It  is  the  moral  sense  or  conscience  that  forms 
the  most  important  of  all  the  differences  between  man  and 
the  lower  animals.  While  Darwin  emphasizes  this,  while 
he  acknowledges  the  supremacy  of  the  ought  of  the  moral 
sense,  and  while  he  quotes  approvingly  Kant's  famous 
apostrophe  to  Duty,  he  does  not  hesitate  to  answer  the 
question  of  the  famous  sage  of  Koenigsberg,  "  Whence  thy 
original?  "  by  tracing  its  genesis  from  the  instincts  of  the 
lower  animals. 

Any  animal  whatever,  he  holds,  endowed  with  well 
marked  social  instincts,  the  parental  and  the  social  affec- 
tions being  here  included,  would  inevitably  acquire  a  moral 
sense  or  conscience,  as  soon  as  its  intellectual  powers  had 
become  as  well,  or  nearly  as  well,  developed  as  in  man. 
Not  that  this  strictly  social  animal  with  intellectual  facul- 
ties, man-like  in  activity  and  development,  would  acquire 
the  same  moral  sense  as  ours.  This  would  depend  entirely 
on  the  conditions  of  existence.  If  men,  says  Darwin,  were 
reared  under  precisely  the  same  conditions  as  hive  bees, 
there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  our  unmarried  females 
would,  like  the  worker  bees,  think  it  a  sacred  duty  to  kill 
their  brothers,  and  mothers  would  strive  to  kill  their  fer- 
tile daughters;  and  no  one  would  think  of  interfering. 
And  when  Sidgwick  remarks  that  a  superior  bee,  we  may 
feel  sure,  would  aspire  to  a  milder  solution  of  the  popula- 
tion question,  Darwin,  judging  from  the  habits  of  savages, 
thinks  such  a  milder  method  very  doubtful. 

It  is  Darwin's  belief  that  any  social  animal,  when  he  be- 


The  Conscience  63 

came  intelligent  enough,  would  gain  some  feeling  of  right 
and  wrong,  would  gain  a  conscience.  For  each  individual 
would  have  an  inward  sense  of  possessing  certain  stronger 
or  more  enduring  instincts,  and  others  less  strong  or  en- 
during; so  that  there  would  often  be  a  struggle  as  to 
which  impulse  should  be  followed,  and  satisfaction,  dis- 
satisfaction, or  even  misery  would  be  felt  as  past  impres- 
sions were  compared  during  their  incessant  passage 
through  the  mind.  In  this  case,  an  inward  monitor  would 
tell  the  animal  that  it  would  have  been  better  to  have 
followed  one  impulse  rather  than  another.  The  one  course 
ought  to  have  been  followed,  the  other  ought  not ;  the 
one  would  have  been  right  and  the  other  wrong.  It  may 
be  remarked  just  here  that  throughout  Darwin  uses  in- 
stinct and  impulse  almost  interchangeably  without  regard 
to  their  biological  and  pS3'chological  differences ;  also  that 
instinct  is  used  in  the  very  loose  fashion  of  common  sense,  | 
as  e.  g.,  "the  instinct  of  self  preservation." 

Darwin  goes  on  to  show  the  extreme  sociability  of  ani-  i 
mals,  how  they  cling  together,  are  miserable  when  alone,  1 
and  render  services  for  one  another.  The  stronger  protect 
the  weaker,  the  old  baboon  rushes  back  to  rescue  the 
youngster  from  danger,  the  monkeys  gather  round  and 
drive  away  the  eagle  from  their  seized  comrade.  This  is 
counteracted  somewhat  bv  the  fact  that  animals  are  some- 
times  far  from  feeling  any  sympathy,  for  they  will  expel 
a  wounded  animal  from  the  herd,  or  gore  or  worry  it  to 
death.  In  this,  however,  they  are  akin  to  the  North  Amer- 
ican Indians  who  leave  their  feeble  comrades  to  perish  on 
the  plains,  and  the  Fijians,  who,  when  their  parents  get 
old,  or  fall  ill,  bury  them  alive.  The  dog  will  protect  his 
master  through  sympathy,  the  little  American  monkey 
saved  his  keeper  froin  the  fierce  baboon. 

The  feeling  of  pleasure  from  society,  Darwin  suggests,  is 
probabl}^  an  extensionof  thatof  the  parental  or  filial  affec- 
tions, which  in  turn  was  gained  chiefly  through  natural 
selections.     The  social  instincts  themselves  were  first  de- 


64  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

veloped  in  order  that  those  animals  which  would  profit  by 
being  in  society  should  be  induced  to  live  together.  Dar- 
win also  observes  that  in  many  instances  it  is  probable 
that  instincts  are  followed  from  mere  force  of  inheritance, 
without  the  stimulus  of  either  pleasure  or  pain.  Hence 
the  common  assumption,  very  modestly  yet  cogently  sug- 
gests the  author,  that  man  must  be  impelled  to  every 
action  by  experiencing  some  pleasure  or  pain,  may  be 
erroneous. 

Man  even  in  his  savage  state  is  preeminently  social.  His 
social  instincts  still  give  the  impulse  to  some  of  his  best 
actions.  In  the  earlier  stages  of  his  development,  how- 
ever, man's  conduct  was  largely  dictated  by  his  egoistic 
instincts.  In  time,  however,  love  and  sympathy  and  self- 
command  become  strengthened  by  habit,  and  as  the  power 
of  reasoning  becomes  clearer,  the  individual  will  feel  him- 
self impelled  apart  from  transitory  considerations  to 
certain  lines  of  conduct. 

Yet  where  is  the  conscience?  Why  should  a  man  feel 
that  he  ought  to  obey  one  instinctive  desire  rather  than 
another?  We  have  now  come  to  the  crucial  point  on 
which  the  whole  question  of  the  moral  sense  turns.  The 
instinctive  impulses,  says  Darwin,  have  different  degrees 
of  strength.  The  social  instincts  are  weaker  than  the  ego- 
istic instincts  of  hunger,  lust,  vengeance,  etc.  Why  does  one 
feel  regret  that  he  has  followed  one  of  these  natural  im- 
pulses rather  than  another?  This  arises,  says  Darwin, 
from  the  fact  that  man  cannot  avoid  reflection.  Past 
impressions  and  images  are  incessantly  passing  through 
his  mind.  The  social  instincts  are  ever  present  and  persist- 
ent, while  the  desire  to  satisfy  hunger,  vengeance,  or  any 
such  passion  is  in  its  nature  temporary,  and  can  for  a 
time  be  fully  satisfied.  Nor  can  we  recall  vividly  such 
desires.  But  we  can  recall  the  fact  that  we  have  acted 
in  the  manner  which  satisfied  them.  These  remembrances 
will  often  pass  through  the  mind  of  the  individual 
and  will  be  compared   with  the  ever  present  instinct  of 


The  Conscience  66 

sympathy.  The  individual  will  then  feel,  says  Darwin, 
as  if  balked  in  following  out  this  present  instinct.  After 
the  gratification  of  these  selfish  desires,  when  past  and 
weaker  impressions  are  judged  by  the  ever-enduring  social 
instinct,  and  by  his  deep  regard  for  the  opinion  of  his  fel- 
lows, retribution  will  surely  come.  He  will  then  feel 
remorse,  repentance,  regret,  or  shame.  He  will  conse- 
quently resolve  more  or  less  firmly  to  act  differently  for 
the  future;  and  this  is  conscience;  for  conscience  looks 
backward  and  serves  as  a  guide  for  the  future. 

Man,  prompted  by  his  conscience,  will  through  longhabit 
acquire  such  perfect  self-command  that  his  desires  and 
passions  will  at  last  yield  instantly  and  without  a  strug- 
gle to  his  social  sympathies  and  instincts.  This  may  be 
inherited.  And  finally  man  comes  to  feel  by  means  of 
acquired  and  inherited  habit,  that  it  is  better  for  him  to 
obey  his  more  persistent  impulses.  The  imperious  word 
"ought,"  says  Darwin,  seems  merely  the  consciousness  of 
a  rule  of  conduct  however  it  may  have  originated. 

Hence  we  see  that  for  Darwin  the  requirements  for  the 
development  of  a  moral  sense,  are  well  developed  social 
instincts  together  with  a  high  grade  of  intellectual  devel- 
opment.  These  social  instincts  are  of  course  not  yet  moral. 
But  with  these  Darwin  begins  and  on  them  or  rather  out 
of  them  he  builds  the  moral  consciousness.    The  high  de- 
velopment of  the  mental  faculties  enables  the  individual  tq 
recall  images  of  past  action  from  all  kinds  of  motives  1 
The  individual  has  many  instincts,  social  and  non-social.) 
All  of  these  seek  satisfaction.    Yet  the  non-social  instincts', 
though  strong,  are  of  short  duration,  while  the  social  in- ' 
stincts  are  almost  always  present.     When  these   social  1 
instincts  predominate,  the  intellectual  being  who  can  re- 
member his  conduct  that   was  prompted  by  non-social  1 
instincts,  will  feel  that  the  instinct  at  present  in  control 
has  been  violated,  and  he  is  much  pained  thereat.     The 
resolve  that  follows,  to  act  in  the  future  in   accordance 
with  the  social  instinct  is  the  moral  judgment  for  self,  the 


n  : 

1 


66  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

pain  here  felt  is  remorse,  the  habit  thus  formed  is  the  moral 
rule  for  action. 

The  conception  of  the  pre-moral  individual  as  a  bundle 
of  instincts,  impulsive  tendencies,  and  desires,  some  of 
which  are  in  our  estimate  of  them  egoistic  and  some  altru- 
istic, is  on  the  whole  a  valid  one.  Especially  is  the  concep- 
tion a  valid  one  in  contrast  with  the  doctrine  that  the 
natural  individual  is  a  sum  of  purely  egoistic  tendencies. 
Darwin  was  in  advance  of  most  thinkers  of  his  time  in 
regarding  the  individual  as  much  an  altruistic  being,  nat- 
'J.-nrally,  as  an  egoistic  one. 

Each  of  these  instincts,  impulsive  tendencies,  desires, 
seeks  its  proper  object,  and  in  achieving  its  end  furnishes 
the  individual  with  a  certain  satisfaction.  If  one  of  these 
tendencies  is  balked  in  its  exercise,  however,  pain  arises. 
One  set  of  these  tendencies,  the  social,  is  of  longer  duration 
than  the  other ;  hence,  having  memory,  we  ponder  longer 
over  any  sort  of  conduct  that  balks  the  functioning  of  these 
tendencies.  Hence  in  order  not  to  experience  such  pains 
in  retrospect,  brought  on  by  having  allowed  the  short- 
enduring  tendencies  exercise,  this  being  of  a  high  degree  of 
intelligence  will,  out  of  regard  for  his  own  pleasure,  deter- 
mine to  refrain  from  action  that  at  anv  future  time  will 
cause  this  pain  to  again  arise,  but  will  determine  to  always 
act  according  as  his  social  instincts  demand.  Darwin  is 
here  making  the  avoidance  of  pain  thesanction  of  conduct, 
and  the  calculation  is  consciously  a  pleasure-pain  on  the 
part  of  the  individual,  due  regard  being  had  to  the  cause 
of  the  pain.  This  would  result  in  a  rule  of  conduct,  which 
is  the  object  of  our  search  here,  but  the  rule  is  only  a  means 
to  a  pleasure  end,  and  the  resource  is  utilized  of  having 
the  individual  forget  theendin  themeans,  after  the  fashion 
of  Mill's  miser,  in  order  that  the  rule  may  be  followed  for 
its  own  sake  according  to  the  requirement  of  the  ought 
whose  genesis  Darwin  is  seeking. 

But  on  the  other  hand  the  individual  is  strongly  pos- 
sessed by  his  non-social  tendencies,  and  when  these  are 


The  Conscience  67 

predominant  their  functioning  and  satisfaction  will  be  his 
chief  concern.  They  are  from  the  standpoint  of  the  natural 
individual  as  deserving  of  satisfaction  as  are  the  social 
tendencies.  Hence  when  these  non-social  instincts  have 
full  sway,  this  individual,  highly  developed  intellectually, 
will  have  passing  through  his  mind  images  of  his  actions 
ensuing  on  the  functioning  of  social  instincts  which  had 
balked  his  egoistic  tendencies,  and  he  will  be  much  pained 
thereat.  Hence  he  will  resolve  m  the  future  to  forego  the 
exercise  of  his  social  tendencies.  He  will  resolve  to  act 
differently  for  the  future ;  and  this  is  conscience,  for  con- 
science looks  backward  and  serves  as  a  guide  for  the  future. 
Darwin  may  be  right  in  saying  that  while  these  strong 
anti-social  tendencies  are  in  the  ascendant  the  individual 
may  not  be  in  as  good  a  frame  of  mind  to  think  over  his 
condition  as  in  the  former  case.  But  the  distinction  is  not 
so  marked  as  it  might  seem.  If  the  satisfaction  of  egoistic 
impulse  or  desire  is  long  deferred,  as  it  must  often  be,  the 
individual  has  much  time  for  thinking  the  situation  over, 
and  can  say  to  himself  many  times,  "What  a  fool  was  I, 
that  in  a  former  situation  I  allowed  altruistic  motives  to 
stand  in  the  way  of  my  egoistic  tendencies."  Hence,  if  we 
follow  Darwin  logically,  the  individual  will  have  tw^o  con- 
sciencies,  or  two  conscious  rules  for  action,  each  acting  at 
its  appropriate  time,  each  reinforced,  or  let  us  say  caused, 
by  its  own  proper  feeling  of  pain  and  remorse. 

This  difficulty  Darwin  seeks  to  avoid  by  insisting  that 
the  individual  has  predominant  for  a  much  longer  period 
the  social  tendencies,  so  that  they  become  more  or  less  his 
habitual  frame  of  mind.  Their  functioning  is  of  longer 
duration,  and  the  individual  will  tend  to  be  more  and  more 
ruled  by  his  social  tendencies  at  the  expense  of  their  oppo- 
site. Yet  it  cannot  but  be  admitted  that  the  egoistic 
conscience  is  as  authoritative  for  the  short  time  that  it  is 
in  exercise,  as  the  longer  enduring  social  conscience.  This 
time  element  upon  which  Darwin  lays  so  much  stress,  and 
to  which  reference  will  be  made  later,  is  not   so  clearlv  a 


68  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

factor  in  the  case  as  is  claimed.  Certainly  in  early  devel- 
opment the  self-regarding  tendencies  played  as  great  a  part 
in  the  persistence  of  the  individual  as  did  the  social  tend- 
encies. Darwin  seems  to  have  in  mind  merely  these  tend- 
encies in  the  shape  of  momentary  passions,  while  these  are 
but  a  small  portion  of  the  whole.  One  might  well  claim 
an  equal  length  time  for  their  exercise,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  greater  strength  of  the  egoistic  tendencies  while  in  ex- 
ercise, admitted  by  Darwin.  Hence  we  have  good  reason 
on  Darwin's  estimate  of  the  psychology  of  the  case,  to 
think  of  a  conscience,  number  two,  an  egoistic  conscience, 
as  well  as  the  conscience  number  one,  the  social  conscience. 
Or  shall  it  be  said  that  rules  thus  relative  and  not  absolute 
are  essentially  not  of  the  stuff  to  make  the  absolute  ought 
of  conscience  ? 

If  w^e  look  at  the  matter  more  closely  from  a  psycholog- 
ical point  of  view,  we  have  the  individual,  let  us  say,  with 
the  social  tendencies  uppermost  contemplating  his  past 
conduct.  To  think  on  it,  says  Darwin,  gives  the  individual 
pain,  because  this  non-social  tendency  is  contrary  to  the 
instinct  at  present  ruling.  Now  it  would  seem  as  though 
this  individual  if  he  were  well  developed  mentally  as  is  the 
supposition,  and  if  he  were  the  shrewd  pleasure-pain  cal- 
culator that  Darwin  would  have  him,  would  be  able  to 
recognize  that  the  satisfaction  of  his  egoistic  tendencies 
brought  him  pleasure.  That  was  pleasurable  satisfaction 
of  instinct  or  desire.  In  memory,  if  the  representation  of 
past  egoistic  conduct  did  not  bring  present  pleasure  on 
account  of  the  present  altruistic  temper,  yet  the  individual 
would  certainly  remember  that  such  egoistic  conduct  had 
been  pleasurable.  The  present  ruling  tendency  affords 
presentative  pleasurable  satisfaction.  Each  would  be 
worth  while  and  at  its  own  time.  If  the  pleasurable  sat- 
isfaction of  instinct,  impulsive  tendency,  or  desire,  be  the 
criterion  of  the  value  of  conduct,  as  it  is  herewith  Darwin, 
then  instead  of  pain  in  the  retrospect,  there  would  be 
pleasure,  or  a  consciousness  that  that  past  had  been  pleas- 


The  Conscience  69 

urable.  If  this  being  is  as  shrewd  a  calculator  as  Darwin 
makes  him  out,  he  would  not  regard  past  egoistic  actions 
in  the  light  of  something  destructive  to  the  satisfaction  of 
present  instinct  and  hence  painful.  Psychologically  speak- 
ing, then,  we  would  have  the  two  sets  of  rules  of  conduct, 
egoistic  and  social,  working  in  turn  in  the  person,  united 
indeed  under  the  higher  law  of  continued  avoidance  of 
pain  and  obtaining  of  pleasure,  which  end  would  be  lost  in 
the  means,  if  at  all,  only  to  be  replaced  by  a  double  and 
inconsistent  set  of  ends.  This  seems  to  be  as  yet  far  re- 
moved from  the  quality  of  moral  obligation  which  Darwin 
speaks  of  at  the  outset. 

To  put  this  result  in  a  slightly  different  way.  It  is  quite 
probable  that  the  resolves  made  during  the  ascendancy  of 
the  social  instincts  would  w^anewhen  again  the  non-social 
tendencies  come  into  play.  Why?  Simply  because  the 
worthful  to  the  individual  would  be  as  before  the  satisfac- 
tion of  present  instinct.  Good  resolutions  would  now 
appear  as  bad  ones,  and  would  be  bad  for  the  very  same 
reason  that  previously  made  them  good.  Conscience  num- 
ber two  would  appear  on  the  scene,  and  the  past  satisfac- 
tion of  social  tendency  would  be  evil,  following  Darwin's 
line  of  argument.  This  intellectual  individual  would  see 
to  it  that  his  present  impulsive  tendencies  were  gratified, 
for  he  has  no  other  rule  or  motive  to  guide  him  than  the 
pleasurable  satisfaction  of  tendency.  His  only  motive  for 
crushing  out  one  tendency  for  the  advantage  of  the  other 
is  to  avoid  pain  and  to  obtain  for  the  longest  time  the 
most  enjoyable  functioning  of  tendency  for  himself.  This 
is  of  course  a  prudential  regard  for  the  individual's  own 
pleasure,  and  does  not  become  moral  motive,  or  obliga- 
tion, by  becoming  very  conscious  and  very  powerful  to 
influence  conduct. 

The  pleasurable  and  painful  consequences  of  conduct  be- 
ingthe  individual's  guides  for  action,  the  worth  of  conduct 
would  seem  to  be  the  product  of  intensity  of  pleasure  by 
its  duration.     Darwin  has  not  made  it  clear  to  us  that  in 


70  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

their  exercise  the  social  tendencies  guarantee  us  more  of 
this  product  than  the  egoistic  tendencies.  It  would  seem 
then  that  in  the  conflict,  if  conflict  there  is,  the  issue  would 
be  very  uncertain.  Of  course,  as  yet,  one  set  of  tendencies 
has  as  much  moral  right  to  the  victory  as  the  other,  sim- 
ply because  neither  possesses  a  shadow  of  moral  right.  If 
indeed  the  social  instincts  and  desires  can  in  the  struggle 
for  existence  endure,  if  by  calling  intelligence  to  their  aid 
they  can  successfully  crush  out  their  opponents,  this  is  no 
guarantee  of  their  moral  flavor  either  to  an  observer  or  to 
the  individual  concerned.  In  all  discussion  on  the  problem 
of  the  origin  of  the  moral  sense  we  are  likely  to  commit 
the  fallacy  of  reading  our  own  point  of  view  back  into  the 
experience  and  judgment  of  the  individual  supposed  to  be 
developing  just  this  moral  sense.  Darwin  has  not  suc- 
ceeded in  escaping  this  fallacy,  for  he  seems  to  think  that 
social  tendency  has  more  of  a  moral  flavor  for  the  individ- 
ual than  egoistic  tendency.  Nothing  could  be  further  from 
the  thought  of  the  individual  concerned.  The  time  element 
is  the  only  possible  feature  in  which  the  social  tendencies 
can  excel  the  egoistic,  and  this  indeed  must  be  the  test  of 
their  morality. 

Social  tendencies,  such  for  instance  as  impulsive  sympa- 
thy, are  not,  even  when  pursued  consciously,  and  to  the 
exclusion  of  egoistic  tendencies,  necessarily  moral  for  the 
individual,  subjectively.  No  doubt  the  conduct  commonly 
and  rightly  called  moral  is  objectively,  largely  made  up  of 
the  sort  of  actions  which  these  altruistic  tendencies  prompt. 
There  must  come  about  somehow  a  harmonj^  or  synthesis 
of  all  the  tendencies  egoistic  and  social,  under  a  common 
rule  of  rightness,  expressing  itself  in  the  person  of  the  self, 
as  the  category  of  moral  obligation.  Darwin  has  rendered 
valuable  assistance  towards  a  solution  in  his  description 
of  the  conflict  between  two  fundamental  phases  of  the  na- 
ture of  the  self. 

But  if  we  consider  the  logical  bearing  of  his  arguments, 
we  see  that  there  would  be  developed,  a  much   different 


The  Conscience  71 

sort  of  an  individual,  from  one  obeying  the  dictates  of 
obligation  for  their  own  sake,  and  one  whose  objective 
conduct  could  be  regarded  as  consistently  obej'ing  through- 
out one  fundamental  law  of  action.  Darwin  has  not  shown 
us  how  that  the  satisfaction  of  one  set  of  instincts  at  the 
expense  of  another  set,  is  of  moral  worth  for  the  individu- 
al. He  has  not  shown  us  how  social  tendencies  become 
transformed  into  laws  with  a  sense  of  moral  obligation 
attached,  merely  by  a  possibly  successful  struggle  with 
other  tendencies  as  much  inside  or  outside  the  moral  pale 
for  the  individual  as  the  former.  If  conscious  imperative 
rule  of  conduct  does  indeed  result,  it  is  the  law  of  pleasure 
for  pleasure's  sake  and  not  that  of  rightness  for  the  sake 
of  its  moral  quality. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  the  sense  of  moral  obligation  is 
not  a  matter  of  development,  in  the  experience  of  the  race 
or  the  individual.  It  is  merely  an  estimate  of  Darwin's 
attempt  to  show  the  method  of  such  a  possible  develop- 
ment. 


CHAPTER  VI 

spencer's  theory  of  the  origin  of  conscience 

In  Chapter  VII  of  the  Data  of  Ethics,  entitled  "The  Psy- 
chological View,"  Spencer  traces  the  development  of  the 
moral  consciousness  and  the  origin  of  the  notion  of  moral  / 
obligation.  Conduct  being  the  adjustment  of  acts  to  ends, 
it  becomes  necessary  to  investigate  the  nature  of  the  men- 
tal process  by  which  this  adjustment  is  brought  about 
when  it  is  called  moral.  In  any  such  adjustment,  moral 
or  non-moral,  we  have,  says  Spencer,  two  phases  of  the 
mental  process,  the  feeling  constituting  the  motive,  and 
the  thought  by  which  the  action  is  brought  about.  The 
motive,  says  Spencer,  passes  through  the  stages  from  a 
simple  nervous  excitement  produced  by  an  object,  through 
the  purely  sensational  stages  simple  and  compound,  a 
cluster  of  presentative  and  representative  sensations  (feel- 
ings), which  leads  to  an  emotion  purely  representative  or 
ideal,  and  this  to  the  highly  evolved  compound  ideal 
emotion. 

Spencer's  psychological  terminology  need  not  lead  us 
astray.  Mind,  he  says,  consists  of  feelings  and  relations 
among  feelings.  Feelings  then,  or  sensations,  which  he 
seems  to  regard  as  synonymous,  are  essentially  affective 
states  of  consciousness,  while  ideas,  or  relations  between 
these  original  affective  data  of  consciousness,  are  essential- 
ly intellective. 

The  thought  element  in  the  mental  process  involved  in 
the  adjustment  of  acts  to  ends  is  first  a  mere  instinct  hard- 
ly removed  from  a  reflex  action  ;  as  the  life  advances,  step 
by  step,  ideas  simple  and  compound  arise,  more  complex 
as  motives  struggle  for  pre-eminence  and  issue  in  action. 


The  Conscience  73 

Whence  come  thoughts  of  conflicting  motives,  and  delib- 
eration on  the  promptings  of  competitive  feeHngs. 

During  the  evolving  process  the  more  representative  feel- 
ings become  more  and  more  the  springs  of  action,  while 
motions  become  more  complex  in  carrying  out  the  more 
complex  motives.  Hence,  of  course,  the  thought  side  of 
the  process,  uniting  the  motive  and  the  act,  becomes  more 
complicated  as  life  evolves  from  the  lower  to  the  higher 
phases. 

All  through  the  ascent  from  the  lower  forms  of  life  to 
the  higher,  life  has  been  preserved  and  more  lasting  benefit  | 
derived  from  subordinating  the  presentative  feelings  to  the  / 
ideal.     A  present   pleasure  is  foregone  for  the  sake  of  a 
greater  one  to  come,  or  for  the  avoidance  of  pain.  The  beast 
leaves  his   prey   and  secretes  himself  on  the  arrival  of  a 
more  powerful   animal,  while  the  savage  learns  to  reserve 
some  of  the  fruits  of  the  chase  for  another  day,  when  good 
luck  may  not   be  his.     As  guides  to  conduct  then,  says 
Spencer,  feelings  come  to  have  more  actual  authority  as 
they  advance  from  the   simple  to  the  complex,  from  thcij 
sensational  to  the  ideal.    And  we  must  also  observe,  in 
viewing  this  evolving  process,  that  the  thoughts  accom- 
panying these  authoritative  feelings  have  become  more 
complex,  as  also  have  the  adjustments  of  acts  to  ends. 

Hence,  says  Spencer,  it  becomes  a  general  rule  for  success 
in  the  struggle,  a  rule  which  if  disregarded  results  in  the 
elimination  of  the  rule-breaker,  that  the  earlier  evolved 
feelings  shall  be  dominated  by  the  later  evolved,  the  simple 
by  the  complex,  the  sensational  by  the  ideal.  The  hard 
facts  of  existence  force  the  observance  of  such  a  rule. 

And  here,  says  Spencer,  is  found  the  genesis  of  the  moral 
consciousness,  for  the  essential  trait  of  the  moral  con- 
ciousness  is  the  control  of  some  feeling  or  feeHngs  by  some 
other  feeling  or  feelings. 

While  we  see  this  growing  tendency  in  the  evolution  of 
life  process,  viz.,  the  subjugation  of  the  presentative  to  the 
ideal,  yet  it  is  not  conscious  subjugation  until  we  have  left 


74  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

not  only  the  lower  animals,  but  also  the  lowest  forms  of 
human  beings.  But  as  we  arise  above  the  life  of  the  sav- 
age, and  come  to  that  life  where  this  subjugation  becomes 
more  frequent  and  more  important,  we  find  gradually 
dawning  a  consciousness  of  it ;  and  it  then  becomes,  ac- 
cording to  Spencer,  a  public  induction  down  from  these 
varied  experiences.  This  conscious  surrendering  a  present 
gain  for  a  future  one,  is,  as  we  have  seen,  the  essence  of  the 
moral  life.  But  it  is  also  the  essence  of  certain  other  re- 
straints which  are  the  natural  outgrowths  of  the  condi- 
tions of  existence,  viz.,  those  arising  from  fears,  political, 
religious,  and  social,  whose  genesis  and  character  Spencer 
proceeds  to  explain. 

While  a  savage  tribe  is  yet  unorganized,  consciousness  of 
the  evils  which  a  fellow-tribesman  may  inflict,  if  immediate 
satisfaction  of  desire  arouses  his  fellow's  anger,  is  the  lead- 
ing restraint  on  these  immediate  satisfactions.  As  chief- 
tainship is  established  this  fear  is  especially  great  towards 
the  chief     He  begins  to  be  both  feared  and  obeyed. 

This  feeling  is  of  course  transferred  in  even  greater  meas- 
ure to  the  dead  chiefs  ghost,  and  his  injunctions,  laws  and 
traditions  become  a  religious  code.  Disobedience  of  the 
mandates  of  this  code  will  call  down  punishment  from 
these  departed  spirits,  while  obedience  will  have  its  reward. 

Social  restraints,  the  natural  wish  for  the  approbation 
of  comrades,  the  fear  of  a  fellow's  vengeance,  are  all  the 
while  in  operation  working  toward  mutual  forbearance, 
and  so  causing  immediate  desires  to  be  checked,  that  the 
more  remote  may  be  achieved. 

Meanwhile  the  sagacious  chief,  seeing  that  cooperation 
among  the  members  of  his  tribe  increases  its  efficiency, 
restrains  quarreling  and  whatever  tends  towards  militan- 
cy within  the  tribe.  These  restraints  again  are  transformed 
into  religious  ones.  These  restraints,  political,  social,  and 
religious,  have  evolved  together  and  are  for  the  good  of 
society.    They  present,  Spencer  holds,  direct  advantage 


The  Conscience  75 

for  acquiescing  in  the  essence  of  the  moral  law.     They  are 
not,  however,  moral  restraints. 

Restraints  properly  moral  differ  from  these  in  that  they 
refer  to  the  intrinsic  effects  of  conduct  and  not  to  the  ex- 
trinsic effects.  Hence  they  are  later  in  development  and 
require  for  their  genesis  a  condition  in  society  in  which 
these  other  restraints  prevail,  to  the  end  that  the  natural 
outcome  of  the  subordination  of  presentative  motives  to 
ideal  ones  may  be  seen  to  be  beneficial.  These  restraints 
Spencer  calls  pro-ethical. 

The  restraint  can  only  be  properly  called  moral  when, 
aside  from  such  outward  constraints,  conduct  is  pursued 
for  its  own  sake,  and  in  view  of  the  gain  or  loss  involved 
in  the  natural  outcome  of  such  conduct.  Hence  arise  moral 
intuitions,  the  result  of  experiences  of  utility  organized  and 
consolidated  through  all  past  generations  of  the  human 
race. 

The  feeling,  itself,  of  moral  obligation  has,  according  to 
Spencer,  two  elements  in  its  make  up.  The  first  element  is 
that  of  authority.  As  soon  as  there  is  a  consciousness  of 
the  benefit  derived  from  postponing  present  good  for 
greater  future  good,  there  arises  the  notion  of  the  author- 
ity of  those  motives  tending  to  this  postponement.  The 
idea  of  authoritativeness  has  come  to  be  connected  with 
feelings  representative  and  ideal,  as  opposed  to  the  sensa- 
tional and  presentative.  Hence  the  consciousness  of  duty 
in  general,  derived  as  an  abstraction  from  these  moral  ex- 
periences. 

The  other  element  is  that  of  coercion.  This  element  is 
very  prominent  in  the  pro-ethical  restraints.  But  this 
element  has  become  so  firmly  attached  to  the  essence  of 
these  restraints,  i.  e.,  the  control  of  the  presentative 
feelings  by  the  representative,  that  in  the  transferrment  of 
the  content  of  these  restraints  to  the  moral  sphere,  the 
element  of  coercion  has,  by  association,  been  transferred 
with  it. 

But  as    the  moral  restraints  become  more  and  more 


76  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

clearly  differentiated  from  the  others,  this  element  of  coer- 
civeness  is  bound  to  disappear,  thinks  Spencer,  and  will 
remain  only  with  its  true  parents  the  religious,  political, 
and  social  restraints.     This  outcome  is  foreshadowed  by 
many  instances  at  the  present  time  while  duty  is  perform- 
ed without  the  consciousness  of  obligation,  as,  e.  g.,  the 
fostering  of  children  by  parents.     Many  men  find  their 
highest  pleasure  in  honest  action,  performed  not  only  with- 
out legal,  social,  or  political  compulsion,  but  also  without 
self-compulsion.     When   men,   says  Spencer,   come  to  be 
completely  adapted  to  the  social   state,  moral  obligation 
will  disappear.     All  the  true  content  of  the  moral  law  will 
become  natural  conduct,  and  will  yield  its  due  amount  of 
pleasure.   The  motive  of  the  consciousness  of  oughtnessor 
right  will  give  place,  according  to  Spencer,  to  the  motive 
of  the  intrinsic  pleasurableness  of  the  contemplated  action. 
The  feeling  of  moral  obligation,  in  so  far  as  it  is  differen- 
tiated from  any  prudential   authoritative  motive,  is  only 
accidentally  a  part  of  the  moral  consciousness,  and  does 
not  enter  into  the  essence  of  it.     This  is  equal  to  coercive- 
ness,  and  the  categorical  imperative  is  really  an  hypothet- 
ical imperative    borrowed    by    association    from    forced 
obedience. 

In  the  first  place,  Spencer  is  incorrect  in  thus  interpret- 
ing the  motive  of  the  consciousness  of  moral  obligation  ; 
and,  in  the  second  place,  he  is  incorrect  in  thinking  that 
moral  conduct  as  such  can  escape  being  instigated  by  what 
we  know  as  the  category  of  oughtness. 

If  the  coerciveness  of  the  notion  of  moral  obligation  is 
merely  an  associational  transfer  from  the  forced  perform- 
ance of  actions  under  the  pro-ethical  constraints,  then,  of 
course,  when  these  constraints  are  seen  in  their  true  nature 
this  feeling  of  coerciveness  must  disappear.  Is  the  ought- 
ness of  moral  obligation  of  such  character  ?  Is  it  bor- 
rowed from  such  a  foreign  category  ? 

There  can  be  no  doubt,  I  think,  that  men  are  seldom 
prompted  to  moral  conduct  simply  and  solely  by  the  mo- 


The  Conscience  77 

tive  of  moral  oughtness.  All  sorts  of  considerations 
usually  enter  in  to  make  up  the  complex  motive,  even  pru- 
dential, social,  political,  and  religious,  and  that,  too,  when 
they  are  w^ell  known  to  be  extrinsic.  No  doubt  there  also 
enter  in  feelings  of  coerciveness  drawn  from  the  individu- 
al's own  experience,  childhood's  punishments,  etc.  There 
may  be,  too,  a  mass  of  inherited  tendenc}'  to  feeling  of 
coercion  from  the  experience  of  ancestors.  Society  has 
also  coerced  the  individual  in  imposing  its  demands  and 
statutes  upon  him.  But  whether  it  has  arisen  with  these 
other  considerations  as  scaffoldings,  or  however  it  may 
have  come  about,  there  is  in  every  really  moral  decision, 
an  inner  lonely  settlement  of  the  case  with  one's  own  inner 
self,  no  matter  what  the  content  of  that  self  may  be;  and 
in  this  there  speaks  out  clearly  and  unmistakably,  as  sepa- 
rate from  these  other  considerations,  and  of  such  a  nature 
as  not  to  be  constituted  by  them,  an  ideal  legislation  that 
is  a  self  legislation,  which  is  the  oughtness  of  the  self  as 
moral.  No  doubt  this  moral  self  is  constituted  through 
its  experiences  but  it  is  thereby  none  the  less  a  personal 
self.  The  decision  that  issues  in  material  morality  may 
indeed  not  be  at  all  dictated  by  the  moral  motive ;  but, 
v^hen  so  dictated,  it  is  truly  a  unique  experience.  If  its 
origin  were  such  as  Spencer  argues,  it  would  seem  as 
though  long  ere  this,  its  parentage  would  have  been  guessed 
by  moral  beings,  and  its  importance  therebv  reduced.  The 
extrinsic  nature  of  the  coerciveness  ought  long  ago  to  have 
been  apparent  to  beings  as  highly  developed  intellectually, 
as  the  more  enlightened  part  of  the  human  race  is  now 
supposed  to  be. 

But,  says  Spencer,  the  feeling  of  moral  obligation  is 
bound  to  disappear  when  moral  conduct  becomes  natural 
and  pleasurable,  when  the  proper  adjustment  of  acts  to 
ends  becomes  more  habitual.  This  conclusion  rests  upon 
the  psychologically  unwarranted  assumption  that  when  a 
course  of  conduct  becomes  pleasant  it  will  thereafter  be 
done  for  the  sake  of  the  pleasure.    Such  indeed  may  be  the 


78  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

case,  but  not  necessarily  so  to  beings  who  have  once  ex- 
perienced the  deeper  call  of  duty.  The  pleasantness  of  the 
contemplated  act  may  indeed  enter  in  as  a  part  motive, 
may  tend  to  become  quite  prominent  in  consciousness  in 
many  classes  of  acts,  but  this  is  no  reason  for  thinking 
that  the  consciousness  of  oughtness  will  disappear. 

In  this  conclusion  of  Spencer,  we  have  the  supposition 
that  after  a  time  moral  beings  in  society  will  have  arrived 
at  a  state  of  stable  equilibrium  where  no  further  advance- 
ment is  necessary  or  even  possible.  Now  this  is  far  from 
representing  the  evolving  progress  of  society.  It  is  of  the 
very  nature  of  the  social  and  ethical  life  to  think  new 
thoughts,  to  create  new  ideals,  to  grow  in  fulness  of  life, 
in  short.  So  long  as  this  is  so,  so  long  as  there  is  a  moral 
life  at  all  in  the  struggle  for  ideals  as  higher  conditions  of 
existence  and  action,  so  long  will  there  be  the  higher  law 
for  the  individual  to  fulfil,  so  long  will  there  be  the  cate- 
gory of  moral  oughtness. 

Thus  we  see  that  Spencer  has  misinterpreted  the  nature 
of  the  consciousness  of  moral  obligation,  and  too 
soon  predicted  its  disappearance.  So  far,  then,  Spencer's 
attempt  has  been  to  explain  the  genesis  of  moral  obliga- 
tion, by  setting  up  a  pseudo-conscience  and  by  explaining 
its  appearance  and  disappearance.  It  remains,  however, 
to  examine  whether  in  his  remaining  argument  Spencer 
has  not  sufficiently  accounted  for  the  development  of  our 
consciousness  or  moral  obligation.  The  individual  in  his 
upward  career  has  been  more  successful  in  maintaining 
his  life  and  obtaining  happiness,  as  he  has  taken  for  his 
guide  authoritative  feelings  which  are  removed  by  their 
complexity  and  their  ideality  from  simple  sensations  and 
appetites.  Here,  then,  we  have  the  individual  struggling 
for  his  life's  preservation  and  for  his  happiness.  This  in- 
dividual has  found  out,  though  unconsciously  as  yet,  what 
are  the  better  guides  for  him.  It  is  for  him  a  matter  of  in- 
dividual concern.  It  is  pre-eminently  the  individual's 
struggle  for  his  own  preservation  and  happiness.  The  rule 


The  Conscience  79 

of  success  has  been  that  presentative  simple  feelings  must 
be  subordinated  to  the  ideal  complex  feelings.  When  this 
becomes  conscious,  says  Spencer,  the  individual  must  be 
regarded  as  moral,  or  as  capable  of  morality.  For  this 
subordination  is  the  cardinal  trait  of  moral  self  restraint. 
That  is  to  say,  when  the  individual  becomes  conscious  of 
the  rule  by  which  he  may  best  preserve  his  life  and  attain 
to  a  surplusage  of  agreeable  feeling,  he  has  reached  the 
moral  stage.  He  sees  the  why  and  wherefore  of  the  rule, 
he  sees  the  desirable  results  to  be  obtained  by  following,  he 
sees  this,  and  being  possessed  of  wisdom  and  prudence,  he 
follows. 

But  we  have  to  ask,  is  this  restraint,  this  conscious  re- 
linquishment of  immediate  and  present  satisfaction,  for 
ideal  and  future  life-preservation  and  happiness,  of  the 
nature  of  moral  resolution  ?  The  moral  consciousness  as 
ordinarily  understood,  with  its  judgments  and  feelings  of 
obligation,  is  not  analysable  into  a  conscious  seeking  of 
one's  own  preservation  and  happiness.  This  is  such  a 
conscious  egoism  that  even  the  egoistic  hedonist  would 
not  be  willing  to  resolve  moral  judgment  and  feeling  into 
it. 

The  authoritativeness  of  the  ideal  feelings  is  thus  seen 
to  be  of  this  purely  egoistic  nature.  This  cannot  be  the 
authoritativeness  of  the  moral  law,  subjectively.  Not  in 
this  element  of  authoritativeness,  then,  do  we  find  the 
meaning  of  moral  obligation  any  more  than  in  associated 
coerciveness. 

But,  says  Spencer,  the  individual  is  forced  by  the  pro-eth- 
ical restraints  to  perform  conduct  that  is  materially  altru- 
istic though  not  subjectively  so.  In  this  period  artificial 
consequences  of  conduct  are  forced  upon  the  individual.  On 
account  of  these  restraints  the  individual  will  get  into  new 
habits  of  conduct,  and  while  compelled  to  such  conduct 
he  will  become  aware  of  the  results  of  it.  His  obedience 
to  these  restraints  is  still  a  matter  of  his  own  concern  for 
his  preservation  and    agreeable  feeling.     At  this  point 


80  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

Spencer  begins  to  reckon  as  the  natural  results  of  acts 
their  consequences  upon  others.  The  results  are  brought 
to  notice  by  the  artificial  restraints.  Now  all  along  from 
the  very  first  even  before  these  artificial  restraints  were 
brought  to  bear,  actions  had  certain  effects  with  respect 
to  others.  These  were  of  course  their  natural  results. 
But  as  such  they  do  not  affect  the  individual.  Results  are 
not  good  or  bad  according  to  their  effect  upon  others.  On 
Spencer's  moral  evaluation  in  this  chapter,  they  are  good 
or  bad  subjectively  for  the  individual  according  as  thc}-^ 
do  or  do  not  promote  the  pleasure  and  continue  the  life  of 
the  individual  concerned.  The  motive  is  not  changed  by 
the  imposition  of  artificial  restraints,  nor  by  the  forced 
performance  of  other-regarding  conduct.  There  will  not 
result  a  conscious  relinquishing  of  the  individual's  satis- 
factions according  to  an  ideal  of  conduct  authoritative  in 
its  moral  force,  for  the  sake  of  others.  If  this  individual 
has  suddenly  become  moral,  then  of  course,  these  effects  of 
actions  wnll  be  viewed  for  themselves  and  the  individual 
will  conduct  himself  accordingl3^  This  presupposes  the 
moral  individual.  But  Spencer  is  not  concerned  with 
what  the  individual  would  do  or  feel,  or  what  motive 
would  prompt  him,  if  he  w^ere  moral  ;  but  the  problem  is, 
how  did  he  become  moral?  Whence  the  genesis  of  the 
moral  consciousness?  Spencer  may  say  that  the  moral 
motive  springs  up  here  somewhere,  but  we  have  not  had 
traced  the  necessary  conditions  of  its  development.  The 
individual  still  follows  so  far  as  we  can  gather  from  the 
argument,  the  rule  for  guidance  that  gradually  dawned 
upon  him  in  his  evolution. 

Spencer's  account  of  the  individual  as  becoming  gradu- 
ally more  and  more  ruled  in  his  development  by  his  com- 
plex and  representative  motives,  is  no  doubt  a  valid  one. 
And  somewhere  in  this  projection  of  ideal  motives  the  in- 
dividual finds  himself  as  ruled  consciously  by  the  ideal 
motive  of  the  oughtness  of  moral  obligation  with  its  con- 
crete content. 


The  Conscience  81 

Sometimes,  however,  motives  that  lead  to  immoral  con- 
duct are  more  representative  than  those  leading  to  moral 
conduct  under  the  circumstances.  Long  delayed  revenge 
is  more  ideal  in  this  sense  than  presentative  pity,  which 
prompts  conduct  that  the  sense  of  moral  oughtness  can 
approve.  So,  too,  some  forms  of  non-moral  conduct 
merely  prudential  or  even  theoretical  in  nature,  are  more 
ideal  than  many  phases  of  purely  moral  conduct,  and  if 
these  should  come  into  conflict,  the  ideal  would  have  to 
give  way  to  the  more  presentative.  Spencer,  too,  makes 
some  exceptions  to  this  rule,  where  ideal  conduct  would 
entail  too  great  a  sacrifice,  or  indeed  in  the  case  mentioned 
in  his  conclusion,  where  all  moral  conduct  becomes  pre- 
sentative to  the  individual,  yielding  present  pleasure. 

In  conclusion,  then,  it  must  be  said  that  Spencer  fails  in 
part  to  show  the  true  nature  of  the  consciousness  of  moral 
obligation ;  and,  again,  and  more  to  our  present  purpose, 
he  has  failed  to  show  the  development  as  a  necessary  se- 
quence of  the  highly  evolved  moral  consciousness  from  the 
admittedly  non-moral  consciousness  preceding  it.  From 
all  that  we  can  gather  from  the  nature  of  the  non-moral 
individual,  he  would  not  become  moral  under  the  condi- 
tions to  which  Spencer  subjects  him.  The  sense  of  moral 
obligation  does  not  seem  to  be  constituted  by  any  of  these 
pre-ethical  conditions,  nor  are  we  shown  how  that  it  must 
grow,  or  even  can  grow  out  of  them. 


CHAPTER  YII 

Stephen's  theory  of  the  origin  of  conscience 

Leslie  Stephen's  treatment  of  the  question  of  the  origin 
of  the  consciousness  of  moral  obHgation  follows  almost  as 
a  corollary  from  his  theory  of  the  moral  ideal.  The  end  is 
the  health  of  the  social  organism.  The  highest  type  of 
individual  morally  is  he  whose  conduct  contributes  most 
to  the  health  of  the  social  organism,  that  is,  his  conduct 
viewed  as  an  outcome  of  his  character.  And  he  is  the 
subject  of  the  feeling  of  moral  obligation  as  he  has  a  senti- 
ment or  feeling  prompting  him  to  this  worthy  line  of 
conduct. 

Stephen  argues  for  the  reality  and  naturalness  of  altru- 
istic feeling.  Altruism  begins  with  the  capability  of  benev- 
olent intentions,  that  is,  when  conferring  pleasure  on  others 
becomes  a  possible  motive.  Every  motive  is  both  objec- 
tive and  subjective,  that  is,  there  must  be  end  as  well  as 
motive.  My  conduct,  sa3^s  Stephen,  must  be  conditioned 
by  my  desire,  but  the  objective  condition  may  be  anj^thing 
which  can  affect  my  desire.  Sympathy  springs  from  the 
primar\^  intellectual  power  of  representation,  and  increases 
with  knowledge.  So  far  as  I  sympathize  with  you,  says 
Stephen,  I  annex  your  consciousness.  True  altruistic  con- 
duct must  spring  from  my  own  feelings,  but  its  object  is 
the  welfare  of  others.  In  order  that  a  being  of  sympathy, 
or  one  provided  with  social  instincts,  should  act  reasona- 
bly, it  is  necessary  not  that  he  should  take  that  course  of 
conduct  which  gives  the  greatest  chances  of  happiness  for 
self,  but  that  which  gives  the  greatest  chances  of  happiness 
to  that  organization  of  which  he  forms  a  constituent  part. 
The  conscience  is  a  feeling  prompting  to  altruistic  con- 
duct, that  which  will  promote  the  health   of  the  social 


The  Conscience  83 

organism.  Conscience  appears  historically  as  a  develop- 
ment of  simple  instincts.  The  moral  law  is  obeyed  long 
before  it  is  brought  into  consciousness.  We  need  not  in- 
deed, says  Stephen,  appeal  to  the  evolutionist  to  see  that 
the  conscience  is  not  an  elementary  faculty.  It  means  in 
any  case  pain  felt  by  the  wrong  doer,  or  the  sensibility  im- 
plied by  that  pain.  Conduct  is  determined  by  feeling,  and 
virtuous  conduct  by  that  particular  kind  of  feeling  which 
we  call  conscience. 

Stephen  goes  on  to  consider  as  connected  with  conscien- 
tious feelings,  what  he  calls  the  sense  of  shame.  It  is  more 
often  excited  by  offences  of  sensuality,  for  instance,  than 
by  those  of  cruelty,  thus  laying  greater  stress  on  one  part 
of  the  moral  code  than  on  other  parts.  It  often  goes 
beyond  the  sphere  of  morality  proper.  A  ^^oung  man 
appearing  at  a  dinner  in  a  shooting  coat  would,  perhaps, 
feel  more  ashamed  of  himself  than  if  he  had  committed  a 
moral  offense.  The  pain  of  making  a  fool  of  oneself  is  often 
greater  than  at  the  breaking  of  some  moral  rule  which  is 
not  detected.  Thus  the  sense  of  shame  is  not  alwaj's  an 
ally  of  conscience,  though  it  is  in  some  sense  implicated  in 
conscientious  feeling.  It  implies  the  existence  of  a  social 
order  of  a  certain  stage  of  development. 

There  is,  too,  says  Stephen,  a  certain  aesthetic  element 
in  the  moral  consciousness.  Moral  approval  includes  the 
pleasure  derived  from  the  contemplation  of  virtuous  char- 
acter, and  may  therefore  give  rise  to  an  aesthetic  pleasure. 
In  fact  the  thorough  assimilation  of  the  moral  law  implies 
the  growth  of  a  sensibility  which  may  be  called  aesthetic, 
a  capacity  for  receiving  delight  from  the  bare  contempla- 
tion of  high  moral  qualities. 

With  these  preliminaries  we  now  come  to  a  more  direct 
consideration  of  the  genesis  of  the  conscience  proper.  What 
is  the  reason  consciously  admitted  by  moral  agents  for 
moral  conduct?  To  any  association  of  human  beings 
there  must  correspond  a  certain  corporate  sentiment. 
This  sentiment  implies  conformity  to  certain  rules  neces- 


84  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

sary  to  the  welfare  of  the  corporate  body.  The  sense  of 
duty,  or  the  purely  moral  obligation,  has  the  same  rela- 
tion to  the  social  tissue,  as  the  various  special  sentiments 
corresponding  to  each  organ  or  association  have  to  the 
body  to  which  thej^  correspond.  This  morality  impressed 
on  a  man  is  an  approximate  expression  of  ideal  moral 
qualities.  For  the  historical  growth  of  the  consciousness 
of  moral  obligation  we  must  view  him  as  a  member  of  the 
familv  in  which  he  is  reared.    As  the  cohesion  of  the  whole 

ml 

tissue  depends  on  the  cohesion  of  the  compound  molecules 
of  which  it  is  built  up,  so  the  society  depends  on  the  family, 
whatever  qualities  are  useful  in  one  relation  being  useful 
in  another.  The  moral  sense  is  absorbed  naturally  as  we 
grow  up  from  childhood,  just  as,  for  instance,  is  patriot- 
ism. The  individual's  life  in  the  family  teaches  him  how 
to  live  in  society. 

The  moral  law  being,  in  brief,  conformity  to  the  condi- 
tions of  social  welfare,  conscience  is,  as  Stephen  defines  it, 
the  name  of  the  intrinsic  motives  to  such  conformity.  So 
far  we  feel  ourselves  to  be  members  of  any  social  organi- 
zation, and  identify  ourselves  with  it,  we  are  in  virtue  of 
that  sentiment  prompted  to  this  conformity,  and  feel  a 
sense  of  obligation.  This  sense  of  obligation,  as  obliga- 
tion, arises  from  our  perception  that  the  rule  is  formed  by 
something  outside  us,  that  we  imbibe  it  from  the  medium 
in  which  w^e  live.  Conscience  is  then  the  utterance  of  the 
public  spirit  of  the  race  ordering  us  to  obey  the  primary 
conditions  of  its  welfare.  It  acts  none  the  less  forcibly, 
because  we  may  not  understand  the  source  of  its  authori- 
ty, nor  the  end  at  which  it  is  aiming. 

This  account  of  the  genesis  of  the  conscience  follows  so 
closely  the  conception  of  morality  as  the  primary  condi- 
tions of  the  welfare  of  the  social  organism,  which  was 
equivalent,  as  we  have  seen,  to  the  conditions  of  the 
greatest  amount  of  life  in  each  and  all,  that  the  criticism 
of  the  theory  must,  in  the  first  place,  follow  our  criticism 
of  this  conception  of  the  content  of  the  moral  ideal.     The 


The  Conscience  85 

content  of  morality  was,  as  we  saw,  not  exhausted  by- 
such  conceptions  as  the  health  of  the  social  organism  or 
the  greatest  amount  of  life  in  each  and  all.  The  two  pro- 
cesses— moral  process  and  life  process — were  not  coincident. 
Each  had  factors  not  resolvable  into  the  other,  which  made 
it  impossible  to  consider  the  essence  of  the  one  as  identical 
with  the  essence  of  the  other,  though  of  course  in  great 
part  the  means  and  the  methods  of  the  two  processes  were 
the  same. 

Now  if,  as  Stephen  contends,  there  must  grow  up  in 
the  life  process,  or  as  he  prefers  to  put  it,  the  social  or- 
ganism, a  sentiment,  which  consciously^  or  more  often 
unconsciously,  prompts  to  action  for  the  welfare  of  the 
social  organism,  this  would  be  a  life  process  sentiment, 
which  very  fact  differentiates  it  from  the  moral  senti- 
ment. If  this  sentiment  were  a  true  servant  of  the  end 
inherent  in  the  process,  it  would  not  of  necessity  be  a 
sentiment  leadmg  always  to  moral  conduct.  It  is  under 
no  obligation  to  be  moral.  True,  just  as  the  two  processes 
largely  agree,  as  the  conduct  of  individuals  exhibiting  the 
essences  of  the  two  processes  largely  agree,  so  this  senti- 
ment would  at  the  present  stage  of  development  where 
the  moral  plays  so  large  a  part  in  the  life  process  to  a 
great  extent  agree  with  the  moral  sentiment.  But  this 
sentiment,  mirroring  in  the  inner  life  of  men  the  evolution 
of  life  process,  cannot  exactly  correspond  to  the  moral 
consciousness  of  men.  The  question  at  issue  is  simple.  It 
must  be  decided  upon  the  plane  of  the  objective  end  and 
not  upon  the  plane  of  the  subjective  sentiment.  As  we 
considered  Stephen's  account  of  the  essence  of  the  moral 
law  to  be  essentially  an  account  of  the  life  process,  which 
could  not  be  identified  with  the  moral  process,  so  the  life 
process  conscience  could  not  be  that  conscience  which  is 
the  spring  of  the  truly  moral  life. 

The  genesis  and  growth  of  this  corporate  sentiment  is 
not  delineated  by  Stephen  as  thoroughly  as  one  could 
wish,  as  this  is  the  all  important  thing  in  such  an  evolu- 


86  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

tionary  description  of  the  nature  of  conscience.  We  have 
it  stated  by  Stephen  that  in  any  society  there  will  and 
must  arise  a  corporate  sentiment  tending  to  the  welfare 
of  that  society.  It  is  so  in  small  societies,  the  sentiments 
corresponding  to  which  are  like  minor  consciences.  Any 
social  club,  political  party  or  religious  organization  pos- 
sesses such  a  corporate  sentiment.  Hence  it  is  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world  for  that  grand  organization, 
the  social  organism,  to  have  generated  within  it  a  senti- 
ment which  actuates  towards  and  echoes  the  well  being 
of  that  organism.  In  so  far  as  the  individual  is  a  true 
member  of  this  grand  society,  in  so  far  will  he  be  possessed 
by  this  sentiment,  and  this  is  conscience. 

The  method  of  this  genesis  is  not  shown  as  fully  as  one 
could  wish.  To  compare  its  origin  with  that  of  the  cor- 
porate sentiments  may  be  somewhat  misleading.  In  the 
case  of  voluntary  organization,  and  most  minor  organiza- 
tions are  such,  the  end  in  view  presents  itself  to  the  indi- 
vidual as  something  desirable,  the  means  to  that  end 
become  definitely  known,  and  consequently  appropriate 
actions  will  be  performed  by  the  individual.  The  end  ap- 
peals directly  to  him,  and  this  at  once  involves  a  desire  for 
that  end,  or  a  sentiment  with  respect  to  it,  else  the  indi- 
vidual would  not  voluntarily  become  a  member  of  said 
organization.  His  sentiment  for  the  welfare  of  the  organ- 
ization is  directly  involved  in  the  very  existence  of  that 
society,  and  is  the  reason  for  his  being  a  member  of  it,  and 
will  impel  him  to  conduct  conducing  to  the  welfare  of  that 
society. 

The  case  of  the  social  organism  is  quite  different  from 
this.  Here,  as  Stephen  points  out,  the  end  is  in  itself  not 
desired  by  the  individual  for  the  simple  reason  that  he  is 
unconscious  of  it,  and  it  probably  would  not  appeal  to 
him  even  though  he  were  conscious  of  it.  The  question  of 
the  genesis  of  the  sentiment  in  this  case  cannot  be  explained 
by  the  analogy  of  the  minor  voluntary   organization  for 


The  Conscience  87 

in  that  the  sentiment  was  based  on  the  direct  desire  for 
the  end  involved. 

It  is  not  clear,  again,  that  we  are  aided  by  the  analogy 
of  involuntary  minor  organizations.  The  sentiments 
prompting  to  action  for  their  welfare  seem  to  involve 
essentially  other  rival  organizations.  It  is  difficult  to  see 
anything  corresponding  to  this  in  the  social  organism. 
We  might  find  it  in  the  relation  of  one  tribe  to  others  or 
even  of  nations.  But  it  would  hardly  seem  to  be  necessa- 
rily called  out  in  its  members  by  such  an  organization  as 
we  must  conceive  the  social  organism  to  be.  One  can  not 
readilv  see  how  the  individual  becomes  possessed  of  the 
sentiment,  nor  how  the  end  appeals  to  him,  even  uncon- 
sciously. 

It  may  be  suggested  that  the  life  process  conserves  such 
factors,  and  eliminates  such  individuals  as  are  not  pos- 
sessed at  some  degree  of  this  social  organism  sentiment. 
Whether  one  could  accept  the  doctrine  that  the  struggle 
for  life  operates  in  just  this  manner  or  not,  it  is  but  the 
ordinary  evolutionistic  factual  explanation,  and  would 
explain  the  preservation  of  the  corporate  sentiment,  and 
not  its  manner  of  genesis. 

It  is  important  that  we  should  notice  the  coloring  of 
obligation  that  this  moral  sentiment,  described  by  Stephen, 
possesses.  This  is  occasioned  by  the  perception  that  the 
rule  is  formed  by  something  outside  us,  that  we  imbibe  it 
from  the  medium  in  which  we  live.  It  would  seem  as 
though  this  were  making  out  of  an  accident  of  the  method, 
by  which  we  are  aided  in  getting  our  moral  notions,  the 
very  essence  of  the  form  of  the  sentiment.  We  learn  from 
society,  but  this  is  not  proving  that  the  oughtness  of  the 
moral  sentiment  is  the  outward  pressure.  This  is  not  an 
evolutionary  description  of  the  genesis  of  the  ought,  but  a 
stereotyped  restatement  of  the  empirical  position,  which 
it  is  not  our  purpose  to  criticize  here.  The  perception  that 
certain  rules  are  forced  upon  the  individual  from  without 
does  not  make  them  binding  in  the  moral  sense.     These 


88  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

rules  like  the  rules  of  other  societies  will  at  best  be  hypo- 
thetical and  not  categorical.  If  you  do  not  wish  to  incur 
the  consequences  of  not  acting  in  accordance  with  the  rule 
formed  by  something  outside,  then  of  course  follow  the 
rule.  For  the  rule  to  appeal  to  the  individual  as  morally 
binding  it  must  find  him  with  a  sense  of  moral  obligation 
already  formed.  The  feeling  of  moral  obligation  is  in  its 
very  nature  that  the  obligation  is  not  imposed  from  with- 
out, but  is  the  expression  of  inner  moral  selfhood.  Stephen, 
certainly,  has  not  explained  the  genesis  and  growth  of  the 
consciousness  of  moral  obligation,  though  this  does  not 
imply  that  such  an  explanation  is  impossible  along  evolu- 
tionary lines. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MORAL  CONSCIOUSNESS 

The  foregoirig  criticisms  of  the  theories  of  Darwin,  Spen- 
cer, and  Stephen,  leave  us  with  the  conclusion  that  these 
theories  are  inadequate  as  an  explanation  of  the  origin 
and  nature  of  the  consciousness  of  moral  obligation.  It 
remains  to  consider  the  inner  aspect  of  the  moral  life,  that 
is  the  nature  of  its  subjective  appeal  to  the  individual,  and 
especially  to  inquire  what  light  the  doctrines  mentioned, 
and  the  evolutionary  doctrine  in  general,  may  throw  upon 
this  much  vexed  question  of  the  origin  of  the  conscience. 

In  the  performance  of  moral  conduct,  there  are  two  as- 
pects of  the  case  which  must  betaken  into  account.  First, 
the  end,  conceived  of  as  the  morally  right  thing  to  be  done 
under  the  circumstances.  This  may  be,  and  perhaps  usu- 
ally is,  attended  by  the  thought  of  indirect  consequences 
which  will  as  a  matter  of  fact  follow  upon  the  performance 
of  the  act.  And,  second,  the  motive  or  motives  for  the 
performance  of  the  act.  This  motive  is  usually  a  complex, 
and  consists  of  the  end  together  with  reinforcements.  The 
end  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  part  of  the  motive,  for,  if  it  had 
complete  possession  of  the  consciousness  of  the  individual, 
it  would  be  the  only  motive  power  necessary  for  the  pass- 
ing over  into  action.  In  addition  to  this,  however,  there 
are  the  affective  qualities  clustering  about  the  thought  of 
the  end,  instinctive,  emotional,  and  sentimental.  In  the 
purely  moral  decision,  the  moral  sentiment  reinforces  the 
conception  of  the  end,  and  with  it  forms  the  motive  in  the 
case.  Here  we  find  in  its  purity  the  feeling  of  moral  obli- 
gation, which  we  commonly  express  by  the  statement  "I 
ought"  or  in  the  negative  manner  "  I  ought  not."  In 
connection  with  this  pure  moral  sentiment  we  have  the 


90  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

moral  consciousness  speaking  in  the  form  of  a  judgment 
"this  is  right"  or  "this  is  wrong,"  when  the  end  is  con- 
templated. This  in  some  cases  follows  the  feeling  phase 
and  sometimes  precedes  it.  It  is  frequently  the  interpreter 
of  the  feeling  or  sentiment  attitude,  but  perhaps  in  the  well 
regulated  life  quite  as  frequently  that  which  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  conduct  calls  the  sentiment  immediately  into 
exercise.  In  addition  to  these  we  must  notice  that  in- 
tensely personal  phavSe  of  the  moral  consciousness  called 
remorse,  and  that  milder  form  of  moral  approval. 

Moral  ends  of  action,  or  representations  of  right  con- 
duct, are  the  phases  of  consciousness  which  appeal  to  the 
individual  in  these  unique  ways.  And  just  because  the 
individual  is  capable  of  being  appealed  to  in  these  ways 
do  we  call  him  a  moral  being.  We  must  also  notice  that 
not  all  courses  equally  right  from  a  moral  point  of  view 
call  out  this  feeling  of  obligation  in  such  a  soul-stirring 
way.  And  yet  we  commonly  think,  and  rightly,  that  they 
w^ould  do  so  were  motives  for  opposed  courses  of  action 
presently  insistent.  This  brief  account  of  its  nature  being 
before  us,  what  can  be  said  as  to  the  origin  and  growth  of 
the  conscience  ? 

The  common  thought  of  these  evolutionary  writers  is 
that  the  conscience  is  an  empirical  growth  from  the  non- 
moral  stage  to  the  moral.  The  development  is  a  matter, 
however,  of  countless  generations  rather  than  a  matter  of 
each  individual  life  as  in  the  doctrine  of  the  ordinary  em- 
piricists. By  this  theory  the  contention  between  the  inten- 
tionist  and  the  empiricist  was  supposed  to  be  done  away 
with. 

It  must  be  admitted  of  course  that  both  in  the  individual 
and  the  race  there  is  an  early  stage  of  life  which  cannot  be 
described  as  subjectively  of  the  moral  sort.  As  developed 
races  and  individuals  have  such  a  consciousness  of  moral 
obligation,  it  must  in  their  lives,  more  or  less  gradually, 
have  come  about. 

A  claim  might  be  made  at  this  point  that  it  is  the  busi- 


The  Conscience  91 

nessof  the  evolutionary  moralist  to  study  the  development 
of  moral  life,  and  not  to  inquire  as  to  its  genesis  out  of  the 
non-moral  life  of  the  race.  That  is,  to  begin  with  its  low- 
er forms  and  to  describe  the  various  developments  subjec- 
tively, and,  more  especially,  objectively,  in  the  growth  of 
the  race. 

In  this  contention  we  have  accentuated  the  uniqueness 
of  the  moral  consciousness,  its  utter  difference  from  all  else 
in  the  world.  As  the  biologist  begins  with  living  organisms 
and  does  not  attempt  as  a  scientist  to  derive  them  from 
inorganic  being,  and  as  the  psychologist  begins  with  men- 
tal phenomena  and  does  not  seek  to  derive  these  from  the 
purel}'  physical,  just  so  the  moral  scientist  will  begin  with 
admittedly  moral  phenomena  and  will  not  seek  to  derive 
this  moral  life  from  the  mental  and  non-moral.  And  only 
as  the  biologist  has  incidentally  to  take  account  of  the 
laws  of  matter,  and  as  the  psychologist  has  to  consider 
the  relation  between  psychic  event  and  physical  stimulus 
and  brain  function,  just  to  this  extent  has  the  moralist  to 
work  with  purely  psychological  laws  and  use  them  in  every 
ethical  determination.  But  just  as  the  biologist  studies 
essentially  life  phenomena,  and  the  psychologist,  mental 
phenomena,  just  so  the  moral  scientist  must  study  moral 
phenomena. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  validity  of  the  contention 
that  the  chief  work  of  the  evolutionary  moralist  is  to  de- 
scribe the  growth  and  advancement  of  the  moral  life  from 
its  rudimentary  stage,  and  evolutionary  ethics  has  done 
much  to  this  effect.  And  in  answering  in  the  negative  the 
question  as  to  whether  it  is  possible  to  show  the  develop- 
ment of  the  moral  consciousness  out  of  the  non-moral  ex- 
perience of  the  race,  it  has  much  of  support. 

For  let  us  notice  that  the  theory  of  evolution  explains 
to  us  the  order  of  appearance  of  existing  things  upon  the 
earth.  And  while,  in  a  general  way,  it  seeks  to  account 
for  the  whole  series  as  an  unbroken  whole,  yet,  in  the  pres- 
ent condition  of  our  knowledge,  it  must  be  admitted  that 


92  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

it  is  still  in  the  theory  stage.     As  purely  scientific  it  may 
be  said  to  have  different  parts  of  a  story  to  tell,  and  while 
nearly  all  are  profoundly  convinced  of  the  closest  relation 
between  the  parts,  yet  the  connection  is  not  proven  as  one 
could  wish  for  a  direct  continuance  of  the  story.     As  his- 
torical and  scientific  the  evolution  doctrine  does  not  seek 
to  explain  just  how  the  organic  arose  from  the  inorganic. 
The  origin  of  life  is  a  fact  but  an  unexplained  fact.     The 
origin  of  consciousness  is  a  fact  but  an  unexplained  fact. 
At  a  certain  stage,  almost  at  the  beginning  of  the  evolu- 
tionary account,  we  have  life  upon  the  scene  in  its  lowest 
forms  almost  indistinguishable  from  the  inorganic.     The 
evolution  doctrine  as  purely  scientific  does  not  seek  to  ex- 
plain the  cause  of  this  lowest  exhibition  of  life,  but  taking 
it  for  granted  seeks  to  explain  all  after  and  higher  life  from 
this  crude  manifestation.   The  same  phenomenon  is  exhib- 
ited when  mentality  first  comes  upon  the  scene.     Its  cause 
is  inscrutable  to  the  scientist.     He  cannot,  even  with  his 
principles  of  natural  selection  and  adaptation  to  environ- 
ment, deduce  its  existence  from  what  has  gone  before.   He 
sees  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  first  appearance  of  mental  life, 
and  from  this  he  seeks  to   develop  the  whole  aftergrowth 
of  mental  life  and  activity. 

As  a  scientific  explanation  then,  we  have  first  the  given 
inorganic,  which  for  our  purpose  need  not  be  traced  through 
its  different  stages,  then  differing  slightly,  but  still  differ- 
ing in  its  essential  character,  we  have  life  exhibited  in  its 
lowest  forms,  then,  after  the  long  development  of  this 
phase  of  existence,  we  have  the  slight  beginning  of  mental- 
ity differing  slightly,  but  yet  differing  essentially,  from  the 
life  preceding.  As  a  scientific  explanation  we  have  the  ev- 
olution theory  giving  a  complete  history  of  continuous 
development  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  except  that 
it  recognizes  two  slight  but  real  breaks  which  it  does  not 
pretend  to  bridge  over — that  between  the  inorganic  and  the 
organic,  and  that  between  the  physical  and  the  mental. 
It  does  not  seek  to  show  how  each  of  these  arose  from 


The  Conscience  93 

what  preceded  it.  It  takes  their  first  almost  indistinguish- 
able forms  for  granted.  This  is  the  position  of  evolution 
as  a  scientific  explanation.  As  a  metaphysical  theory  it 
seeks  of  course  in  some  manner  to  unify  these  scientific 
disparates. 

Logically  then  it  is  possible  for  still  another  order  to 
arise  somehow  from  the  mental  life,  which  at  first  is  but 
slightly  different  from  the  mental  and  yet  different  essen- 
tially, just  as  the  mental  arose  upon  the  physical  and  the 
organic  upon  the  inorganic.  Not  that  it  is  necessary  that 
any  such  new  order  should  originate.  Nothing  in  the  men- 
tal order  would  warrant  its  deduction,  just  as  there  was 
presumably  nothing  in  the  inorganic  from  which  on  evolu- 
tionary scientific  principles  the  organic  could  be  deduced, 
nor  yet  anything  in  the  physical  from  which  the  mental 
could  be  deduced.  But  if  phenomena  should  in  the  time 
process  arise  that  are  different  essentially  from  merely 
mental  life,  the  existence  of  a  new^  order  descriptive  of  such 
phenomena  would  logically  be  thoroughly  in  keeping  with 
the  evolutionistic  account  of  the  other  orders  of  existing 
things. 

The  question  that  naturally  arises  in  this  discussion  is 
one  of  fact  as  to  whether  the  moral  life,  the  moral  con- 
sciousness or  the  conscience  is  a  distinct  order  differing 
essentially  from  the  other  three. 

Logically  there  can  be  no  difficulty  in  so  conceiving  it, 
and  methodologically  there  is  considerable  advantage. 
It  is  in  keeping  with  the  modern  scientific  attitude  of  sep- 
arateness  of  subject  matter  for  purposes  of  investigation. 
And  as  above  stated  the  consideration  of  morals  in  this 
separate  way  must  ever  be  the  chief  business  of  the  evolu- 
tionary moralist.  Yet  there  can  be  no  gain  in  separating 
so  completely  even  for  methodological  purposes  the  moral 
from  the  non-moral,  if,  in  fact,  there  is  no  clear  cut  distinc- 
tion. And,  of  course,  after  our  consideration  of  Darwin, 
Spencer,  and  Stephen,  we  must  admit  that  there  would  be 
a  possibility  of  cutting  ourselves  off  from  an  explanation 


94  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

of  the  moral  consciousness  in  any  way  except  in  terms  of 
itself. 

The  moral  life  is  of  course  a  part  of  the  mental  or  con- 
scious life.  It  contains  within  itself  intellection,  affection, 
and  conation.  The  term  mental  life  includes  within  itself 
moral  sentiments,  discriminations,  and  determinations. 
Hence,  of  course,  there  is  no  such  distinction  between  the 
moral  life  and  non-moral  as  that  between  the  mental  and 
the  physical.  Yet  from  our  consideration  of  Darwin, 
Spencer,  and  Stephen,  it  is  not  yet  apparent  how  various 
non-moral  factors  can  be  combined  and  placed  in  the  cru- 
cible of  time  and  experience  and  have  issue  the  moral  con- 
sciousness of  man. 

The  fact  that  the  moral  life  is  a  part  of  the  mental  life 
does  not  however  settle  the  case.  The  organic  is  a  part  of 
the  material  world,  yet  living  organisms  are  essentially 
different  from  the  rest  of  the  physical  world,  and  their  ori- 
gin is  unexplained.  So  the  moral  may  still  be  essentially 
different  from  the  simply  conscious  and  non-moral,  and 
not  derivable  from  it  by  any  known  method. 

The  argument  rests  then  upon  the  verdict  of  men  as  to 
the  nature  of  the  moral  consciousness.  This  verdict  seems 
to  be,  at  least,  that  there  is  an  essential  difference.  The 
moral  life  appeals  to  the  individual  as  a  life  of  oughts  and 
ideals.  The  moral  sentiment,  the  moral  judgment,  and 
the  moral  ideal,  have  in  them  a  unique  quality,  audit  does 
not  yet  appear  from  the  discussion  how  this  quality  is  to 
be  accounted  for. 

If  it  cannot  be  accounted  for,  then  the  moral  scientist  is 
as  ignorant  of  the  question  of  origin  as  the  biologist  or 
the  psychologist,  the  one  of  life,  another  of  consciousness, 
and  the  other  of  the  sense  of  moral  obligation  and  better- 
ness. 

If  we  should  endeavor  to  describe  the  moral  conscious- 
ness as  it  first  appears  it  would  probably  be  found  to  be 
something  different  from  that  which  is  now  experienced 
as  highly  developed  moral  life.     Yet  in  calling  this  moral, 


The  Conscience  95 

it  must  contain  certain  features  which  distinguish  it  from 
non-moral  experience.  The  first  gHmmerings  of  moral  life 
are  discerned  when  in  any  individual  one  impulsive  tend- 
ency or  desire,  or  temporarily  inhibited  instinctive  reac- 
tion, appeals  to  that  individual  as  better  than  another, 
when  one  of  these  tendencies  conquers,  or  endeavors  to 
conquer,  an  opposing  one,  by  a  dim  feeling-  of  worth,  or 
betterness,  or  right.  This  once  arrived  at  in  human  devel- 
opment, we  have  the  germs  of  the  moral  creature.  This 
is  the  first  moral  victory  and  moral  life's  beginning.  The 
nature  of  the  future  development  may  be  anticipated  from 
the  first,  in  that  it  is  a  struggle  for  the  victory  of  the  right, 
and  an  acknowledgement  of  the  place  of  worth  in  the  con- 
sideration of  all  possibilities  of  conduct. 

We  have,  in  this  early  experience  just  referred  to,  a  con- 
sciousness of  end,  or  rather  of  ends,  and  a  subtle  reinforce- 
ment of  one  end  by  a  feeling  of  worth  which  is  practically 
the  feeling  of  moral  obligation.  It  is  then  in  feeling  with 
respect  to  an  end,  or  proposed  phase  of  conduct,  that  the 
moral  consciousness  first  appears.  Here  we  find  the  es- 
sence, the  beginning  of  the  full  moral  sentiment.  The  moral 
consciousness  as  judgment  soon  arises  as  interpretative  of 
these  feelings,  and,  naturally,  remorse,  when  the  feeling  is 
not  allowed  to  rule. 

It  is  possible  that  we  may  be  able  to  go  back  further 
than  this  in  describing  the  development,  but  at  any  rate, 
if  we  should  begin  here,  we  should  be  beginning,  as  moral 
scientists  with  the  first  evidences  of  the  moral  life,  just  as 
the  biologist  begins  with  the  beginnings  of  organisms  and 
the  psychologist  with  the  beginnings  of  consciousness. 
The  work  then  of  the  moral  scientist  would  then  be  a  de- 
scription of  the  growth  of  the  moral  life,  subjectively  in 
part,  but  of  course  chiefly  with  respect  to  its  objective 
determinations.  This  is  a  worthy  task,  if  not  indeed  as 
ambitious  as  the  task  of  the  derivation  of  the  moral  life 
from  the  non-moral. 

If  we  assume  this  starting  point  we  have  the  moral  order 


96  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

arising,  somehow,  in  the  midst  of  an  order  not  moral.  It 
arises  now  for  itself  and  struggles  for  its  life.  The  princi- 
ple of  worth,  of  betterness,  of  right,  is  now  established. 
The  basal  principle  of  morality,  the  vitalizing  force  of 
moral  consciousness  is  at  work.  Subjectively  the  story  is 
nearly  told,  but  objectively  not  at  all  so.  It  remains  for 
the  experience  of  the  race  to  reveal,  and  for  the  moral 
scientist  to  describe,  what  is  the  full  content  of  the  moral 
for  man.  This  moral  process  now  seeks  its  own  growth. 
The  principle  once  established,  the  content  of  that  principle 
is  capable  of  indefinite  growth.  The  time  process  alone 
can  reveal  the  whole  of  moral  possibility. 

The  consideration  of  worth  referred  to  above  as  deter- 
mining actions,  in  order  to  be  moral,  must  be  absolute  in 
its  nature.  This  feeling  distinguishes  its  ends  as  above  all 
things  to  be  desired  ;  and  the  feeling  of  worth,  or  of  ought, 
and  the  judgment  of  right,  are  of  the  essence  of  the  con- 
science. 

In  answering  the  question  as  to  whether  we  can  go  back 
of  such  experiences  as  these  in  the  matter  of  moral  origins, 
we  must  make  a  distinction  between  two  aspects  of  the 
case  commonly  confused.  Are  we  to  attempt  to  name  the 
factors  in  non-moral  experience  which  may  be  used  and 
fused  in  such  a  manner  as  to  become  the  content  of  the 
consciousness  of  moral  obligation ;  or,  are  we  simply  to 
attempt  to  lay  down  the  conditions  within  which  moral- 
ity emerges,  that  is  as  a  growth  by  itself  and  not  by  a 
fusion  or  growth  of  these  non-moral  conditions  ? 

None  of  the  writers  whom  we  considered  made  this  dis- 
tinction clear.  Spencer  comes  most  nearly  to  it  when  he 
speaks  of  the  pro-ethical  conditions  out  of  which  the  moral 
life  emerges,  but  he  immediately  regards  these  as  factors, 
and  not  merely  as  conditions.  The  attempt  to  produce 
the  moral  consciousness  from  any  factors  non-moral  in 
their  nature  seems  a  hopeless  one.  It  fails  in  the  explana- 
tions of  these  evolutionists,  as  it  failed  in  the  ordinary 
empirical  explanation  of  the  genesis  of  the  moral  conscious- 


The  Conscience  97 

ness  in  the  individual.  The  moral  consciousness  is  unique 
in  its  nature,  and  its  essence  is  not  to  be  explained  by  any 
chemistry  of  non-moral  considerations.  It  is  beyond  their 
reach.  It  has  something  in  it  which  these  others  have  not, 
individually  or  in  union. 

Nor,  indeed,  can  it  be  truly  claimed  that  an  evolutionary 
explanation  necessitates  such  a  view.  The  story  of  origin 
would  be  well  told  if  the  second  attempt  mentioned  above 
should  succeed,  though  less  ambitious  in  its  nature  than 
the  attempt  to  resolve  the  moral  nature  into  non-moral 
factors. 

Let  us  see  then  how  far  we  may  get  in  the  matter  of 
laying  down  the  conditions  under  which  we  may  reasona- 
bly suppose  that  morality  must  have  sprung  up.  These 
no  doubt  were  very  complex,  just  as  in  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual the  conditions  of  the  appearance  of  the  purel}'  moral 
consideration  are  complex.  And  I  think  we  may  safely  say 
that  those  conditions  of  life  which  Spencer,  Darwin,  and 
Stephen,  laid  down  as  the  conditions  of  the  moral  life,  or 
rather  the  factors  out  of  which  it  was  made,  we  may  ac- 
cept as  likely  conditions  out  of  which  morality  could 
spring.  No  doubt,  as  Darwin  says,  we  must  think  of  the 
pre-moral  being  as  endowed  with  tendencies  egoistic  and 
social.  And  with  Spencer,  too,  we  may  conceive  of  the 
various  pro-ethical  controls  as  forcing  certain  lines  of  con- 
duct, being  likely  conditions  of  the  dawning  of  the  better- 
ness  or  worth  of  conduct.  And  activity  for  the  life  of  the 
social  organism,  according  to  Stephen's  thought,  with  a 
feeling  or  sentiment  toward  the  furthering  of  this  life, 
would  no  doubt  give  a  better  chance  for  the  moral  con- 
sciousness to  spring  into  life. 

In  other  words,  in  order  that  the  genuine  moral  con- 
sciousness may  have  a  genesis,  we  must  have  beings  living 
together,  and  so  ordering  their  acts  that  all  may  live  to- 
gether and  live  together  well.  We  must  have  an  escape 
from  a  purely  egoistic  position,  if  indeed  the  individual 
ever  were  in  such  a  position,  to  a  beginning  of  effort   for 


98  English  Evolutionary  Ethics 

others  as  well  as  for  self,  and  of  a  measure  of  feeling  of 
sympathy  reinforcing  such  activity.  We  must  have 
enough  intelligence,  memory,  imagination,  and  reasoning, 
to  appreciate  the  meaning  of  this  endeavor,  which  is  the 
actual  living  out  of  activities  promotive  of  a  good  which 
is  more  than  individual,  which  is  social.  Here  he  will  feel 
the  social  pressure,  and  herein  no  doubt  he  will  find  some 
egoistic  advantage.  He  will  act  perforce  from  social  pres- 
sure, and  to  a  small  extent  willingly  from  prudential  con- 
siderations so  as  to  bring  about  in  his  family  and  tribe 
those  things  which,  good  for  himself,  are  good  also  for 
others.  Or  at  least  his  conduct  will  not  be  such  as  to  en- 
croach upon  the  attempt  of  others  to  obtain  like  goods. 
These,  it  would  seem,  are  the  conditions  of  life  out  of 
which  the  moral  must  spring.  The  conditions,  we  repeat, 
and  not  by  any  means  the  factors  out  of  which  it  is  made. 
When,  in  the  process  of  life,  the  moral  does  spring  up,  it 
will  exhibit  certain  unique  qualities  not  found  in  the  pre- 
moral.  A  feeling  or  sentiment  for  the  better,  as  better,  of 
prompting  toward  the  common  good,  the  transfiguration 
of  egoism  and  altruism,  of  an  obligation  to  make  actual 
an  ideal.  This  does  not  borrow  its  authority  from  advan- 
tage in  the  struggle,  nor  from  association  from  outer  com- 
mand, but  is  the  genuine  authority  of  the  appeal  of  the 
ideal  upon  the  individual  as  moral,  as  susceptible  of  bet- 
terness  of  conduct,  and  of  response  to  a  common  good, 
with  the  power  of  self-legislation  to  effect  the  end. 

We  see  then  that  the  genuinely  moral  consciousness  ap- 
pears quite  early  in  the  social  life,  that  it  comes  into  being, 
somehow,  when  certain  conditions  are  present,  but  that 
it  is  not  a  product  of  non-moral  factors.  From  the  view 
of  the  ethicist  this  would  seem  to  be  the  pronouncement 
upon  the  attempt  of  the  evolutionist  to  derive  the  moral 
life  from  the  preceding  non-moral  life. 

Any  attempt  to  make  a  closer  union  than  the  one  here 
suggested  between  the  moral  life  and  the  preceding  non- 
moral  life,  must  be  a  metaphj'sical  one.    It  may   be  that 


The  Conscience  99 

the  metaphysical  task  here  would  not  be  as  difficult  a  task 
as  to  unify  the  three  orders  of  existence,  the  inorganic,  the 
organic,  and  the  conscious,  as  phases  of  one  underlying 
principle.  It  may  be  that  the  basal  metaphysical  principle 
is  itself  ethical.  But,  methodologically,  the  task  would 
seem  to  be  a  metaphysical  one. 


^   OF  THE     , 


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